THE SPENCERIAN TRAGEDY 97 



structure of the main and outstanding constituent of living 

 matter — the proteins — a hypothesis that renders it possible for 

 us to understand how digestion or, more broadly, metabolism 

 is the keynote of the whole matter ; how through this universal 

 svstem of dissociation of food-stuffs into their elemental radicles 

 it is possible for the cell to utilize and accustom itself to new 

 and foreign food-stuffs ; how doing this, the constitution of 

 the living molecules may become altered ; and how Professor 

 Bateson's incapacity to comprehend the possibility of progressive 

 acquirements by the individual and his germ cells is due to his 

 static method of approach to the subject. To one who regards 

 life, not from the morphological point of view, in terms of form, 

 but from the physiological, in terms of function — who regards 

 life as a moving equilibrium, who regards it as in essence " a 

 state of persistent and incomplete recurrent satisfaction and 

 dissatisfaction of . . . certain proteidogenous molecules," 3 and 

 metabolism as the primary and basal characteristic of living 

 matter — for such an one there exists no such stumbling-block. 



Progressive Accretion of Properties 



Just as Weismann's hypothesis of heredity breaks down owing 

 to the sheer physical impossibility of all the determinants it 

 demands being packed into the microscopic nuclear chromosome, 

 so the Batesonian hypothesis of a backward evolution by the 

 progressive removal of inhibitory factors, like the baseless 

 fabric of a vision, fades into nothingness once it is confronted 

 with the demonstration that positive, direct acquirements can 

 surely be brought about. Both hypotheses, indeed, enter into 

 the limbo of the past, as examples of the Spencerian tragedy — 

 that of a deduction destroyed by a fact. 



I imagine that it will be your experience — it certainly has 

 been mine — that it is those whose gentle birth is least obvious, 

 and genealogy most dubious, those who hang on to the border- 

 line of good family, who most vaunt themselves regarding their 

 descent. They do, net realize that in these days it is a man's 

 ascent that ennobles hir2, not his descent, even if, paradoxically, 

 ascent is not possible without good rich blood : it is the pro- 

 gressive accretion of properties, not the progressive loss. But, 



1 Adami, Principles of pathology, 1st ed., 1908, vol. i. p. 55. 



H 



