HEREDITY IN PHYSIOLOGY, IN MEDICINE, ETC. 353 



play them, so deep and instinct with life, that training and 

 discipline, instead of aiding them, impede their improve- 

 ment. We should discover in the man of genius a self- 

 reliant precocity, an adventurous ardor, a powerful con- 

 viction of his mission, a pride lifting him above prejudices 

 of sect and party ambitions, and attaching him solely to 

 the object of his thoughts, which alone gives life a charm 

 for him. Even though his daily needs compel him to inter- 

 course with men, the world is for him only a peopled desert 

 in which his soul dwells apart. 



A part of the materials for such a study exists ; it may 

 be sought in the biographies prepared by the secretaries 

 of the great academies during the last two hundred years, 

 and in the autobiographical memoirs left by many famous 

 men. A learned and ingenious Russian writer, Wechnia- 

 kof, has lately published several papers, in which he inves- 

 tigates from this point of view the anthropological and so- 

 ciological peculiarities that have affected the individual 

 development of original geniuses. These little works, un- 

 fortunately, do not form a complete whole ; yet nothing 

 could be more curious and useful than a treatise on innate- 

 ness. 



The group of all the causes of diversity, heterogeneity, 

 and innovation, which are working upon the human race in 

 opposition to the principles of simplicity, homogeneity, and 

 conservation, may be described in a single word, that of 

 evolution or progress. Regarded within the limits of our 

 actual observation, blind Nature remains identically ever 

 the same. It is, to-day, in its totality, what it was in 

 Homer's time, and what it will assuredly be many ages 

 hence. The same skies exist, the same oceans, the same 

 mountains, forests, and flowers. Man, on the contrary, is 

 ceaselessly changing. Generations follow and do not re- 

 semble each other. They are, in relation to their beliefs, 

 their arts, their wants, in a state of rapid and constant 

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