68 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



sessed when children, viz., manual dexterity and a good ear" 

 (p. 269). "The pianist . . . may by practice develop the 

 muscles of his fingers so as to ensure the highest dexterity and 

 power ; but such an effort would be entirely transient, for it 

 depends upon a modification of local nutrition which would 

 be unable to cause any change in the molecular structure of 

 the germ-cells, and could not therefore produce any effect 

 upon the offspring" (p. 278). If this were true nothing is 

 more certain than that the talent for piano execution could be 

 no higher in the ten thousandth generation than that attained 

 during the first, and that the curve representing the progress 

 of music, sculpture, the talent for special scientific research, 

 or any other form of genius, would be an irregular line with 

 absolute average horizontality instead of what we know it to 

 be in every case, an irregular, but progressively ascending 

 curve marking a great forward movement. 



It is universally conceded that the evidence for the trans 

 mission of acquired mental qualities is much stronger than for 

 those of any other class, chiefly because they are entirely with 

 drawn from the action of natural selection, not tending in the 

 least to the survival of the fittest. It has therefore been nec 

 essary for Weismann to deny their transmission at all. This 

 is so palpably contrary to the facts of human history that few 

 have been willing to follow him to this length. It is well 

 known that Mr. Wallace has always excepted the human race 

 from the action of natural selection, but in so doing he has 

 seen fit to abandon the scientific method entirely, and in his 

 last work he makes a complete break in the continuity of 

 development with the advent of the higher psychic facul 

 ties, calling in an independent spiritual attribute to account 

 for this class of phenomena. Prof. K. Ray Lankester, the 

 foremost of Neo-Darwinians, in reviewing this work of Mr. 



