WEfSMAIWS ASSAYS UPON HEREDITY. 29 



protozoa are "immortal/' and that the existing 

 individuals are part and parcel of those which 

 have been the ultimate source of mischief, would 

 no doubt enable us to punish them without detri- 

 ment to our sense of justice. And if corrective 

 measures could be applied to the protozoa, we 

 might in some millions of years produce through 

 new aeons of evolution a more perfect race than 

 ourselves. It would be a great satisfaction to have 

 contributed to this result, but we still want a 

 modus vivendi for the present, and an intelligible 

 scientific theory of punishment. 



