ioo The Scottish Naturalist. 



adaptation to her standard of perfection, and fitness to con- 

 tinue their kind by reproduction. From the unremitting opera- 

 tion of this law, acting in concert with the tendency which the 

 progeny have to take the more particular qualities of their 

 parents, together with the connected sexual system in vegetables, 

 and instinctive limitation to its own kind in animals, a consider- 

 able uniformity of figure, colour, and character is induced, con- 

 stituting species j the breed gradually acquiring the very best 

 possible adaptation of these to its condition which it is suscep- 

 tible of, and when alteration of circumstance occurs, thus 

 changing in character to suit these, as far as its nature is sus- 

 ceptible of change. 



This circumstance-adaptive law, operating upon the slight, 

 but continued, natural dispositions to sport in the progeny (seed- 

 ling variety) does not preclude the supposed influence which 

 volition or sensation may have over the configuration of the 

 body. 



To examine into the disposition to sport in the progeny even 

 when there is only one parent, as in many vegetables, and to 

 investigate how much variation is modified by the mind or 

 nervous sensation of the parents, or of the living thing itself 

 during its progress to maturity, how far it depends upon exter- 

 nal circumstances, and how far on the will, irritability and 

 muscular exertion, is open to examination and experiment. In 

 the first place, we ought to investigate its dependency upon the 

 preceeding links of the particular chain of life, variety being 

 often merely types or approximations of former parentage, thence 

 the variation of the family, as well as of the individual, must be 

 embraced by our experiments. 



This continuation of family type, not broken by casual par- 

 ticular aberration, is mental as well as corporeal, and is exem- 

 plified in many of the dispositions or instincts of particular 

 races of men. These innate or continuous ideas or habits seem 

 proportionally greater in the insect tribes, those especially of 

 shorter revolution, and forming and abiding memory may re- 

 solve much of the enigma of instinct, and the foreknowledge 

 which these tribes have of what is necessary to completing their 

 round of life, reducing this to knowledge, or impressions, or 

 habits, acquired by a long experience. 



This greater continuity of existence, or rather continuity of 



