PKESIDE^'TIAL ADDRESS. 269 



question ; but observations such as I suggest, directed 

 towards the inheritance of differential use, would be less 

 open to these objections, and to the criticism that the effects 

 might be due to the conditions of domestication. 



In any case, in my opinion, this question of use-inheritance 

 will not be settled one way or the other without experi- 

 mental evidence and definite observation. Neither side will 

 be satisfied with a priori arguments. 



And it is a question of wide bearing. In psychology, not 

 only does it assume importance in all considerations concern- 

 ing the origin of instincts, but it profoundly affects the 

 arguments of the modern experiential school, which holds or 

 has held that what is psychologically innate is largely due 

 to inherited experience. If the growing disbelief in use- 

 inheritance be justified on the ground of experimental 

 observation, psychologists, not for the first time, will have 

 to readjust their conclusions so as to harmonize with the 

 teachings of biological science. 



The social bearings of the question are also by no means 

 unimportant. The advocates of fuller and freer education 

 have for the most part believed that the improvement of one- 

 generation will in some degree be transmitted to the next. 

 If use-inheritance be disproved, there is no such transmis- 

 sion. The average innate intellectual and moral capacity of 

 the generation of Englishmen now being born cannot on 

 this view be much higher, and is probably somewhat lower 

 than it was some half-dozen generations ago. Commenting 

 on this social aspect of the question. Professor Le Conte, in a 

 recent paper (Alonist, vol. i., no. 3), says : — " If it be true 

 that reason must direct the course of human evolution, and 

 if it be also true that selection of the fittest is the only 

 method available for the purpose ; then, if we are to have 

 any race-improvement at all, the dreadfid law of destruction 



