70 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OP WASHINGTON. 



attempt to transmit the acquired superiority but allows it to be 

 diluted and lost In- promiscuous breeding with stock that has 

 not been subjected to any training. As a matter of fact train- 

 ing enters largely into the development of superior breeds of 

 horses, and great care is taken that educated strains be bred 

 together. And breeders as a rule would ridicule the idea that 

 all their training goes for nothing, and that it is only accidental 

 variations that can be bred into the new race of horses. 



But let us take another case in which natural selection is 

 wholly excluded. It is well known that a steady and uniform 

 progress has been going on for a century or more in all forms 

 of gymnastic skill and feats of bodily suppleness by men con- 

 stantly in training for the purpose, which is comparable to that 

 which has taken place in the trotting power of horses. Every 

 year new wonders are brought before the public and the feats 

 of the previous year are exceeded by some fresh virtuoso. This 

 is accomplished, I am told, by lifelong training of the children 

 of acrobats and of their children, thus producing, as it were, a 

 little race of acrobats. What care is taken to prevent the loss 

 of much of this through marriage outside of the trained stock, 

 I do not know, but certain it is that great progress in physical 

 development has taken place and is taking place, and there is 

 no doubt whatever that it is largely due to the transmission of 

 the qualities directly acquired by training. 



In fact, Mr. Galton's conclusions, notwithstanding his doubts 

 about the transmission of acquired talents, are not only not 

 opposed to that view but in great part confirmatory of it. He 

 is led by a carefully conducted series of inquiries and investi- 

 gations to believe that genius is in the main hereditary ; that 

 the exceptionally talented and highly endowed are descended 

 from talented and highly endowed parents, etc. But this only 

 throws the question back one generation farther, and it remains 



