312 THE INDUCTIONS OF BIOLOGY. 



organized and inherited connection between such cadences 

 and such emotions; that the combination of such cadences, 

 more or less idealized, which constitutes melody, has all 

 along had a meaning in the average mind, only because of the 

 meaning which cadences had acquired in the average mind; 

 and that by the continual hearing and practice of melody there 

 has been gained and transmitted an increasing musical sensi 

 bility. Confirmation of this view may be drawn 

 from individual cases. Grant that among a people en 

 dowed with musical faculty to a certain degree, spontaneous 

 variation will occasionally produce men possessing it in a 

 higher degree; it cannot be granted that spontaneous varia 

 tion accounts for the frequent production, by such highly- 

 endowed men, of men still more highly endowed. On the 

 average, the children of marriages with others not similarly 

 endowed, will be less distinguished rather than more distin 

 guished. The most that can be expected is that this unusual 

 amount of faculty shall re-appear in the next generation un- 

 diminished. How then shall we explain cases like those of 

 Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, all of them sons of men having 

 unusual musical powers who were constantly exercising those 

 powers, and who greatly excelled their fathers in their musical 

 powers ? What shall we say to the facts that Haydn was the 

 son of an organist, that Hummel was born to a music master, 

 and that Weber s father was a distinguished violinist ? The 

 occurrence of so many cases in one nation within a short 

 period of time, cannot rationally be ascribed to the coincidence 

 of &quot; spontaneous variations.&quot; It can be ascribed to nothing 

 but inherited developments of structure caused by augmenta 

 tions of function. 



But the .clearest proof that structural alterations caused by 

 alterations of function are inherited, occurs when the alter 

 ations are morbid. I had originally named in this place the 

 results of M. Brown-Sequard s experiments on guinea-pigs, 

 showing that those which had been artificially made epileptic 

 had offspring which were epileptic ; and I name them again 

 though his inference is by many rejected. For, as exemplified 



