2IO TRANSMISSION OF ACQUIRED CHARACTERS 



Large and Small Hands. — Darwin {Descent of Man, p. i8) 

 refers to the alleged fact that the infants of labourers have larger 

 hands than those of the children of the gentry ; but this, and 

 many similar cases of which it is a type, may be sufficiently 

 accounted for by interpreting the observed differences as con- 

 stitutional characteristics of different stocks probably accentuated 

 by various forms of selection. Spencer notes, " That large hands 

 are inherited by those whose ancestors led laborious lives, and 

 that those descended from ancestors unused to manual labour 

 commonly have small hands, are established opinions." But if 

 we accept the " opinions " as correct, it is easy to interpret the 

 size of the hands as a stock character correlated with different 

 degrees of muscularity and vigour, and established by selection. 

 The hands of Japanese are in many details anatomically different 

 from the hands of Europeans, but there is no warrant for regarding 

 these detailed differences as other than constitutional racial 

 differences of germinal origin accentuated modificationally in 

 the individual lifetime. 



Dwindling of Little Toe. — The alleged dwindling of the little 

 toe has been repeatedly cited as a case in point — proving the 

 inheritance of a modification produced by tight boots. But 

 precise data are wanting ; a dwindling has also been observed 

 in savages who do not wear boots ; it is possible that there may 

 be in man, as there was in the ancestors of the modern horse, a 

 constitutional variation in the direction of reducing digits ; 

 and there are other possible explanations of the rather vague 

 assertions. It need hardly be pointed out that unless there is 

 a measurably progressive dwindling with similar boots in the 

 course of generations the case has no point. A control experiment 

 comparing the toes in sets of brothers respectively booted 

 and bootless would be interesting. 



Results of Pressure. — Darwin [Descent of Man, p. i8) regards 

 the thickened sole of even unborn infants as due to " the in- 

 herited effects of pressure during a long series of generations." 



