222 Life and Death, Heredity and Evolution 



that can be realized. In other words, no one can predict 

 with certainty the characteristics of the offspring to be 

 produced by a given pair. Parents in which certain char- 

 acteristics are developed in but a mediocre degree may pro- 

 duce by their union offspring in which these characteristics 

 are developed in a high degree, as we saw in Paramecium that 

 parents of low vigor may produce a few offspring of high 

 vigor. This is as true for the qualities which in human in- 

 dividuals we tend to class as good or bad, as for vigor in 

 Paramecium. From mediocre parents may arise, by the 

 formation of new combinations of the hereditary material, 

 offspring that are distinguished for good or for ill. 



This is the fact that undermines all exclusively aristo- 

 cratic theories of breeding and inheritance in such an organ- 

 ism as man; this is the possibility that must underlie any 

 democratic theory of society and of progress. Possibly 

 from the great mass of mediocre humanity there may arise 

 by new combinations in every generation so great a number 

 of distinguished men as to make the contribution of offspring 

 from the relatively few distinguished individuals unimpor- 

 tant. It is not certain that the relative infertility of the 

 intellectual classes decreases the existing proportion of in- 

 tellectual men. It may be that there continually arises from 

 the great average mass of mankind a proportion of dis- 

 tinguished men that remains relatively constant, even though 

 these distinguished men may not reproduce at all. 



To return to our general relations, this process of re- 

 combination does not evidently, of itself, result in the pro- 

 duction of any new characteristics. We cannot say posi- 

 tively that it does not, but if the chemicals on which devel- 

 opment depends the primary hereditary characters were 

 permanent, unchangeable things, then recombination could 

 produce merely kaleidoscopic regrouping of these; and the 



