178 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



bundle of characters not separable from each other 

 and transmitted as a whole. That is the old view 

 of inheritance. Under such a conception we look to 

 the transmission, not of characters, but of individuals. 

 But this conception is being rudely shaken, and in 

 many instances clearly does not express the truth. 

 In human life, and in mental traits, it obviously does 

 not hold in certain cases. For if it did, how do we 

 explain the fact that the mother's mental and the 

 father's physical capacities may pass to a particular 

 child ? . , Clearly in such cases there has been a separa- 

 tion of definite characters from individuals, and their 

 recombination in another. It is in this way, among 

 others, that unit-characters behave in hereditary 

 transmission. As far as it goes, therefore, such a 

 fact indicates the existence of unit-characcers in Man. 

 In further discussing the question along this line, 

 I may cite some instances of what may possibly be 

 examples of a unit-character, the presence of which 

 produces a characteristic trait, which have come under 

 my personal notice. The people who are concerned in 

 these cases I have known intimately throughout 

 the whole period involved in each. Imperfect, as 

 scientific demonstrations, though they are, I am the 

 more tempted to describe them, since by so doing it 

 may be possible that the attention of others will be called 

 to the nature of what must be quite familiar observa- 

 tions. I assume that Miss Wodehouse will grant that 

 speech is related to mind ; and that any characteristic 

 intonation which may be manifested may be regarded 

 either as a unit-character or as a group of such 



