HEREDITY IN PHYSIOLOGY, IN MEDICINE, ETC. 363 



provement by convincing them that they can be made bet- 

 ter. United with judicious cultivation of heredity when 

 working for good, education thus conquers heredity in its 

 evil working, and gives new life to the generations. 



Yet we must not concede to education an exaggerated 

 influence, nor assume that it can by itself alone produce 

 superior characters of great eminence. It has, like hered- 

 ity itself, but a limited power. Genius eludes the one, as 

 it does the other. Genius, the most whole and perfect ex- 

 pression of the mind regarded as a free creative force, 

 combines in one immortal consolation with eternal despair 

 for our nature. It is a solace, because it is the fountain of 

 all light and all rapture ; it bids us despair precisely because 

 it is singular, exceptional, capricious, strange, disdainful of 

 the meddling touch of those who strive to pierce its mysteri 

 ous secret, stubbornly defiant of the efforts of those who strive 

 to subdue it, in a word, absolutely beyond the ken of the 

 logic and discipline of the common run of men. It is a 

 mighty tree, bearing fruit of food for the ages, and grow- 

 ing under conditions that forbid us to hope either to incite 

 or foretell its production, or to rule its existence or calculate 

 its fertility. We must wait humbly and patiently till it 

 pleases Providence to bestow on us its blessing and glory. 

 Happily, men of genius are not indispensable to humanity. 

 The more the general level of a nation is lifted, the less es- 

 sential do they become. Now that level rises irresistibly, 

 whenever the will and the ready force of all citizens know 

 but one sincere desire, that of self-improvement. The cult- 

 ure of heredity by relentlessly eradicating all causes that 

 tend to degeneracy, and fostering causes that work im- 

 provement, may be commended with all assurance to na- 

 tions ambitious of winning by its means the foremost rank 

 in the world. 



THE END. 



