34 MARRIAGE AND DISEASE. 



thrift, who encumbers the broad acres of the family 

 estate, and leaves his children penniless, no more surely 

 robs his children of their rightful heritage, than does 

 the man (or woman) who, by a wicked and vicious 

 life, degrades his nature, thereby making his children 

 physical, mental, or moral beggars. 



Some students of heredity deny that characters 

 acquired by the individual are transmitted to the 

 offspring, and foremost amongst these is the German 

 savant Weismann, who has done so much to advance 

 our knowledge on all things relating to heredity. With 

 these, however, we cannot agree. We hold, with the 

 great majority of authorities on the subject, that all 

 characters acquired by the individual have a distinct 

 effect, more or less powerful, upon the offspring of the 

 individual To admit that these acquired characters 

 are not transmitted, nor transmissible, is to make a 

 clean sweep of evolution. If acquired characters have 

 no influence upon the offspring, from whence came the 

 innumerable characters which are to-day transmitted ? 

 Are they each the result of a distinct creative act, 

 and, if not, how did they arise, how did they come 

 into existence? Have they, and every other of the 

 countless myriads of characters which are, and which 

 through all past ages have been, exhibited in all the 

 various human races, been originally and ever present in 

 the germ plasm ? Some physiologists assert that this is 

 so, that the germ cell acts but as a torch whose touch 

 lights up the spark of life, and which is passed on from 

 generation to generation, unchanged and unchange- 



