SOME NEW PRINCIPLES 239 



There are two points of view from which this 

 conclusion may be regarded — the general biological 

 one and the strictly utilitarian one. If we regard 

 it from the former point of view, we have to ask 

 ourselves whether we are prepared to believe that the 

 activities of the soma play no part in determining 

 the structure of the soma in subsequent generations. 

 For my own part, I am by no means prepared to 

 state that I believe any such thing. In the first 

 place it is extremely doubtful whether any more 

 than a few hundred characters, the vast majority of 

 which exist only in a state of domestication, are 

 inherited in Mendelian fashion ; and, in the second 

 place, we have to remember that the changes to which 

 evolution is due have either been imperceptibly 

 small or, if not small, have been separated by immense 

 numbers of generations, and that, in either case, they 

 have extended over such prodigious periods of time 

 that it is improbable that any observations likely to 

 throw any light on their nature will be made in the 

 number of centuries during which public opinion will 

 remain stable enough to continue these observations 

 on the same lines, and still less in the number of 

 years during which a single man can devote his 

 attention to them. 



If on the other hand the conclusion, stated at 

 the end of the last paragraph but two, be regarded 

 from the utilitarian point of view, comfort may be 

 derived from the reflection that most of the characters 

 of animals and plants which are of economic import- 

 ance seem to be inherited in Mendelian fashion ; and 



