ON HEREDITY 
motion pictures have been taken; making our 
separate snapshots one every three minutes 
instead of fifteen or sixteen to the second, so that 
the reel would cover a period of fifteen days; then, 
with a fifteen day history recorded on our film, to 
run it through the projecting lantern at the rate 
of fifteen or sixteen pictures to the second, thus 
showing in seven or eight minutes the motions 
of growth which actually took fifteen days to 
accomplish; on the screen before us, with quick, 
darting motions, we should see the sweet pea 
wriggle and writhe and squirm—we should see it 
wave its tendrils around in the air, feeling out 
every inch within its reach for possible supports 
on which to twine. 
“We should see, by condensing half a month 
of its life into an eight minute reel, that this sweet 
pea has inherited an actual intelligence—slow in 
its operation, but positive, certain—an inherited 
intelligence which would be surprising, even, in 
an animal.” 
“All through plant life we find these undeniable 
evidences of heredity. 
“IT have here, for example, two tiny seedlings 
which look almost alike. They are distantly 
related. One is the acacia and the other the 
sensitive plant. 
[43] 
