124 ANDREW JACKSON HOWE. 



nishing a better environment or by offering more ac- 

 ceptable nutriment. The soil and climate of America 

 have contributed beauty to exotic flowers, and added 

 flavor to foreign fruits. The Arabian horse grazed 

 for generations on the blue grass of Kentucky, has 

 acquired qualities superior to those developed or man- 

 ifested in ancestral stock. 



The followers of Darwin and the champions of 

 evolution are prone to utilize certain terms or expres- 

 sions; for instance, "survival of the fittest," "sexual 

 selection," "tendency to reversion," and the like, as 

 if they expressed laws or signified principles, when 

 they are merely catch-words to represent vital opera- 

 tions or sequences. On the other hand, the advocates 

 of heredity of Biblically attested inheritance cite 

 old formulas to prove that there has always been an 

 unvarying transmission from sire to son, from parents 

 to offspring, generation after generation, organisms 

 continuing ever the same to the end of time. 



Now, to both of these methods for conveying in- 

 formation there are valid objections, because neither 

 is absolutely true. The fittest, or strongest, or most 

 favored, do not always survive or continue, but acci- 

 dent or chance has something to do with heredity. 

 Once the elephant and the horse flourished on this 

 continent, but became extinct through causes beyond 

 control ; and when, at a subsequent period, they were 

 reintroduced from the old world they throve as though 

 fitness were in their favor. Sexual preference is a 

 fancy, and often damaging as an influence in shaping 

 the destinies of the race; and "reversion" only means 

 a backward oscillation of the pendulum which has 

 swung too far from the center of attraction. As pre- 

 viously stated, direct inheritance without modification 



