CHAPTER II. 



VARIATIONS. 



So far we have been speaking of heredity broadly, as 

 it affects the race generally, and as if there were no 

 other influence at work in moulding the offspring than 

 this " like father like son " rule. Certainly there is 

 no other influence which exercises a tithe of the power 

 which heredity pure and simple does in foreordaining 

 what the child shall be ; but if we consider for a 

 moment, we shall see that there must be other influences 

 at work. If it were not so, if heredity were not in any 

 way interfered with, the child must, of necessity, be a 

 perfect mean of the parents, and all children of the 

 same parents must be identical. Now we know that 

 this is not so. An exact likeness, physical, mental, or 

 moral, is never transmitted by inheritance ; such a 

 thing is impossible. It has been said that no two 

 blades of grass are exactly alike, and it is certain 

 that no two faces, bodies, minds, or moral natures are 

 exactly alike. Each person is endowed with a certain 

 individuality which distinguishes him from all others. 

 At times we do meet with a case in which the child is, 

 to a marvellous degree, a reproduction of one or other 



