HEREDITY OR ENVIRONMENT 139 



single generation. Mr. Miidge held that, do what 

 we will to improve the health of mind or body, we 

 can but influence the individual, when he dies the 

 results of our efforts will perish also, for they cannot 

 be transmitted to his progeny. With this proposi- 

 tion I could not agree, and I sought to show that the 

 new environment might be handed on, like money 

 or other property, and so continue to influence each 

 succeeding generation in its turn. And as evidence 

 of this I took two examples: A negative one, showing 

 how an inheritable environment might continue to 

 suppress an instinct, even if it did not ultimately 

 destroy it ; and a positive one, showing how the 

 inherited environment might perpetuate an acquired 

 accomplishment. 



Mr. Mudge is not quite fair in challenging me 

 to show that every inhabitant of this country 

 possesses cannibal instincts. I really do not pre- 

 tend to know whether he does or not. What I 

 wrote was, "What does it matter if he does?" I 

 assumed, perhaps rather rashly, that at some remote 

 period our ancestors were cannibals ; and I took it 

 for granted that so thorough-going a Weismannist 

 as Mr. Mudge w^ould not admit that the cannibal 

 instinct could be destroyed by civilisation. Since 

 I did not see how else could it be eradicated, it 

 must, I argued, if it ever existed, still exist. But 

 it lies now deep down in our nature, altogether 

 latent, and as good as extinct ; and that because we 

 inherit an environment, which we call civilisation, 

 in which such desires are never awakened. 



