ON HEREDITY. 551 



that the souiatogeuic acquired characters are not transmissible from 

 parent to olispring. Mr. Francis Galton (for example) giv^es a very 

 (jualifled assent to the possibility of transmission. Prolessor His, of 

 Leipsig, doubts its validity. Professor Weismaun says that there is no 

 proof of it. Mr. Alfred Eussel Wallace in his most recent work* con- 

 siders that the direct actions of the environment (even if we admit that 

 Its etfects on the individual are transmitted by inheritence) are so small 

 lu comparison with the amount of spontaneous variation of every part 

 of the organism, that they must be quite overshadowed by the latter. 

 Whatever causes (he says) have been at work, natural selection is su- 

 preme to an extent which even Darwin himself hesitated to claim for it. 

 There is thus a conflict of opinion amongst the authorities who have 

 given probably the most thought to the consideration of this question. 



In the llrst place I would however express my agreement with 

 much that has been said by I'rofessor Weismann on the want of sutti- 

 cieut evidence to justify the statement that a mutilation which has af- 

 fected a parent can be transmitted to the offspring. It is I suppose 

 within the range of knowledge of most of us that children born of par- 

 ents who have lost an eye, an arm, or a leg, come into the world with 

 the full complement of eyes and limbs. The mutilation of the parent 

 has not affected the oftspring; and one would indeed scarcely expect 

 to tind that such grots visible losses of i)arts as take place when a liinb 

 is removed by an accident or surgical operation, should be repeated iu 

 the offspring. But a similar remark is also applicable to such minor 

 mutilations as scars, of the transmission of which to the oflspring-, 

 though it has been stoutly contended for by some, yet seems not to be 

 supported by sutiiciently detinite instances. 



I should search for illustrations of the transmission of somatogenic 

 characters in the more subtle processes which affect living organisms, 

 rather than those which are produced by violence and accident. I shall 

 take as my example certain facts which are well known to those engaged 

 in the breeding of farm-stock or of other animals that are of utility 

 to, or are specially cultivated by, man. I do not refer to the influ- 

 ence on the offspring of imjuessious made on the senses and nervous 

 system of the mother, the flrst statement of the eflects of which we 

 And in the book of Genesis, where Jacob set p(^eled rods before the 

 Hocks in order to influence the color and markings of their young; 

 though 1 may state that I have heard agriculturists relate instances 

 from their own experience which they regarded as bearing out the 

 view that impressions acting through the mother do influence her off- 

 si)ring. But 1 refer to what is an axiom with thos«^ who breed any 

 particular kind of stock, that to keep the strain pure, there must be 

 no admixture with stock of another blood. For example, if a short- 

 horned cow has a calf by ^i highland sire, that calf, of course, exhibits 

 characters which are those of both its ])arents. But future calves 



* Dai-wiiiism. London, 1869. P. 443. 



