IVEISM ANN'S ESSAYS UPON HEREDITY. 23 



enough to say that there is an obvious and 

 triumphant answer from the point of view of 

 Catholic theology, which, however, may be reserved 

 till the difficulty is raised. 



But the belief in Heredity has already influenced 

 our judgment of responsibility and our theories 

 of punishment. It is a common argument on 

 temperance platforms that the drunken father or 

 mother is transmitting to the offspring the " craving 

 for drink," which in themselves is an "acquired" 

 character. If we accept Weismann's theory, this 

 is no longer true, or at least it is no longer a true 

 way of putting the facts. For nothing that the 

 parent can do or abstain from doing, in the way of 

 use or disuse, can influence the offspring, which 

 must inherit the joint inheritance of both its 

 parents. 



Then there is the great question of education. 

 Is it true, as Weismann's theory requires, that 

 the children of highly educated parents profit 

 nothing by that education, but have an identical 

 starting-point with their parents ? It may be true, 

 but if so we shall have to recast many of our 

 common views. 



It would seem, for instance, that if the new view 

 of Heredity be accepted in place of the old, and if, 

 so far as the species is concerned, it matters little 

 what the parent does, but matters a great deal 

 what the father is to start with, that the legislator 



