66 THE MICROSCOPICAL NEWS. 
moral qualities are frequently transmitted in like manner, 
and doubtless many of you can call to mind instances in 
which peculiarities of temper, or still worse, the tendency to 
drunkenness or other vices have almost certainly been inherited. 
It is, indeed, held by many, with respect to what are called the 
criminal classes, that the tendency to crime in their younger mem- 
bers is not altogether the result of their surroundings and education 
(or want of it), but is due, to a great extent, to the inheritance of 
vicious tendencies from their parents. Be this as it may, there is 
no doubt as to the reality of the transmission of physical, mental, 
and moral qualities from one generatioh to another, and, this being 
so, let us consider what it involves, or what explanation can be 
given of it. Well, the first attempt at explanation is, that all the 
characteristics and qualities of the offspring, be they similar to 
those of the parents or not, are directly impressed upon it by its 
Creator, either at once, say at its birth—or more gradually—not 
only then, but before and after that event. Some years since this 
view, no doubt, obtained very largely, and there are still a number 
of persons who accept it, especially among those who are in con- 
stant fear of science clashing with, and, mayhap, overturning beliefs 
which they hold (and very conscientiously too) to be essential to 
religion. Some attribute everything to education, and go so far as 
to suppose that: all human beings come into the world on exactly 
the same footing, and without any inherited tendencies, the mind 
of an infant (I do not know if they extend this view to animals 
generally) being a ¢abu/a rasa on which anything may be written 
according to the will and fancy of the writer. People holding 
this view are now few and far between, and it is too absurd to 
be worth consideration. Nor will the teleological explanation 
referred to be satisfactory to the scientific man. He knows 
that effect follows cause, and that for every effect, no matter how 
small or great, there must be an adequate cause, and not only 
so, but that there must also be adequate means by which the cause 
can produce the effect. To make the bell ring there must be, not 
only the power applied to the bell-pull, but there must be the wire 
to carry the impulse to the bell. If, then, we reject the teleological 
explanation, what is our alternative? It is simply this, that, in 
some way or other, all the parental characteristics and peculiarities, 
physical, mental, and moral, which are destined to be reproduced 
in the child must necessarily be contained in the fertilised ovum 
from which that child is to be evolved, and thus be ina position to 
be transmitted to it. It may be said that this cannot be absolutely 
necessary as regards the characteristics of the female parent, as 
there is opportunity for the gradual infusion of these into the off- 
spring during the period of gestation, which may be true, but is 
scarcely supported by analogy, as in the case of birds and other 
