1868. | Darwin and Pangenesis. 307 
the higher animals, whose tendency to vary (we do not speak of 
any special organs) depends palpably to a large extent upon the 
action of mental influences. An Actinca may find itself surrounded 
by natural conditions over which it has no control, as changed food, 
deficiency or superabundance of light, or any other physical cause, 
and which may bring about a change in its reproductive elements, 
and thus give rise to a new variety. But would it be either 
natural or rational to apply this rule to the higher animals, espe- 
cially to Man? Is it not certain that there we have psychical 
forces inducing actions, and those actions bringing about new 
varieties, and in a manner independently of those material influences 
which operate lower down in the animal scale. 
A union may be brought about between two human beings solely 
from the attractions of the mind; and let us suppose some marked 
mental quality to be inherited. Now, we are apt to use the term 
“inherited” somewhat arbitrarily; for what appears to be thus 
communicated might, after all, be the result of mental training or 
example, which would have operated in a foster-child as well as in 
true offspring, and in that case the illustration would cease to hold 
good. But assuming that there is a “prepotency ” on the side of 
the father to transmit his likeness, and that therefore some slight 
cerebral characteristic descends to the son, upon whom training and 
example are brought to bear, so that the mental quality, whatever 
it may be, comes to be developed in a higher degree in the son 
than in the father. 
Here we have two distinct states of facts and two forces: the 
one physical, the other psychical; the one material, and explicable 
only upon a “ provisional hypothesis,” the other metaphysical, and 
yet as clear and patent as any such matters can be to the human 
mind. 
In the parents, love or respect operating, it is true, through 
the senses, but uninfluenced by the “sense” in a lower acceptation 
of the term, brings about a union which is to lead to a new varia- 
tion both in the physical and psychical nature of man. In the 
offspring, solicitude evinced in training or teaching, that is, mental 
intercommunication, and later on the wumnfettered will of the 
offspring, develop and perpetuate the mental quality, and almost 
certainly mould the brain and physical frame in conformity to the 
new condition: the immaterial, impalpable soul acts, invisibly to 
us, upon the brain, just as we develop the muscles through 
physical exercise; but prominent before all other phenomena we 
find the will, the soul, the active, guiding, moving force at work, 
and at work upon willing, passive materials. 
Now look at the materialistic hypothesis. We will admit that 
it is possible a “ prepotency” in the father may have given his 
likeness to the son: that the supposed order, number, nature, and 
