1 88 COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART in 



they got there because I headed them off at all the 

 wrong roads which we had to pass. Yet it would be 

 perilous to affirm that "heading off" was the one cause 

 why they got to market. They got there because they 

 were quadrupeds, and disliked being hit. (I waive, as 

 possibly not directly relevant, the farther consideration 

 that there was some one to drive them.) Yet our 

 modern evolutionists talk as if barricading the wrong 

 roads not only kept pigs from straying, but actually 

 taught them for the first time how to walk. 



When we turn to use-inheritance once more we see 

 that it also may be so developed as to convey the same 

 vicious suggestion. New qualities come from without, 

 not from within ; from the environment, and not from 

 the organism. The environment stamps them on the 

 passive organism, and it (according to the doctrine of 

 use-inheritance) transmits them to offspring. But Mr. 

 Sandeman has forestalled this opinion by a remark of 

 brilliant force and point. Every acquired quality, he 

 observes, is congenital [in its rudiments], and every 

 congenital quality is also acquired [i.e. developed in 

 the course of life]. Of course this is a very strong form 

 of statement, and it seems to forbid all use of the 

 wonted distinction. But presently, having fired off his 

 epigram, and having bowled over his enemy with it, 

 Mr. Sandeman descends to a less rarefied atmosphere, 

 and admits that the two possibilities may be contrasted 

 as matters of fact and [conceivably, though experiment 

 is difficult here] of evidence. For the truth is that 

 every living creature is more or less plastic in definite 

 directions ; and life develops this or that ; so it is a 

 fair question whether or not the offspring resemble the 

 parent as modified in his own development prior to 

 his begetting offspring. But Mr. Sandeman's paradox 



