2375.) Heredity. 159 
moreover, can the will create faculties which are in their 
origin and development synchronous with itself ? 
But perhaps the Accidentalist—for so we must term him 
who denies the law of Heredity—may ask, in turn, whether 
that law is not also open to the charge of merely pushing 
away to a little distance a difficulty which it cannot solve ? 
You derive your genius from your father, who, in turn, re- 
ceived it from your grandfather. Is not this like the Hindoo 
Astronomy which supported the earth on an elephant, and 
the elephant on a tortoise, but left the tortoise to struggle 
as he might for a footing among the Immensities? Cer- 
tainly not, for here we must point out as a happy coincidence 
that the doctrine of heredity was not formally promulgated 
until after the great law of organic evolution had been made 
known. Obscurantists have, indeed, sneered at modern 
science as denying—by the mouth of Messrs. Galton and 
Ribot—what she had just declared by the mouth of Darwin, 
Wallace, Haeckel, and Schmidt. The joke is too poor to 
be unpardonable. ‘The doctrines of evolution and of here- 
dity are not contradictory, .but harmonious. When we 
account for genius by pronouncing it hereditary, we do not 
mean to say that it suddenly made its appearance in some 
remote ancestor, or that it has been from eternity an heir- 
loom in certain families. We conceive of it as being 
formed, in the course of generations, by small successive 
increments. A man of fair average intellect and good con- 
stitution marries a woman similarly endowed. He leads a 
life free at once from excesses and from asceticism, from 
torpor and from exhaustive over-work,—free, above all 
things, from anxiety. Suppose one of his children, born 
under such favourable circumstances, well nurtured and 
well educated, repeats the process. The grandchildren will, 
in all probability, show marks of decided superiority. If, 
now, such conditions are continued, the result in the fourth 
or fifth generation may be a Shakspeare,a Bacon, or a 
Humboldt. If we reflect how rare must be the concurrence 
of conditions needful for this gradual elevation of a family, 
we need not wonder at the scarcity of genius. 
The question may be raised, on the other hand, not why 
children inherit the faculties and dispositions of their 
parents, but why such resemblance is not more complete 
and more uniform? What, simply, is the cause of that 
striking diversity often recognised in one and thesame family ? 
In short, admitting the general principle of heredity, what 
are its conditions, its modes of action, and its limitations? 
VOL. V. (N.S.) x 
