THE HEREDITY OF RICHARD ROE. 



129 



Wisdom is knowing what to do next, and wisdom may 

 exist in humble as well as conspicuous fields of action. 



Again, at the time of Richard Roe's birth, the for- 

 mula of his father was slowly changed, under the re- 

 action toward activity or to idleness, 



anges roug resulting from his efforts and his en- 

 expenence. . ... . . . 



vironment. If it was ongmally and 



potentially A -(- B, and that of his father A'-f- B, it is 

 now no longer so. Changes constantly arise from the 

 experiences of life, the stress of environment, the re- 

 duction of "mental friction," the formation of auto- 

 matic nervous connections or habits, the growth through 

 voluntary effort, the depression from involuntary work 

 or idleness, the degeneration through the vitiation of 

 nerve honesty caused by stimulants or vice, the deteri- 

 oration due to spurious pleasures that burn and burn 

 out. 



Each of these may have come to the father of Rich- 

 ard Roe, and each one had left its mark on him. The 

 fairy's wand and the fool-killer's club each leaves an 

 indelible trace whenever it is used. Through these in- 

 fluences* every man is changed from what he was or 

 what he might have been to what he is. 



* Let X be the aggregate of gains and Y of losses due to these 

 acquired qualities. In the case of the mother these may be X' 

 and Y'. In this case X and Y, X' and Y', represent large fac- 

 tors, but excessively diverse and varying, affecting in some de- 

 gree all the qualities contained in the symbols B and B'. Richard 

 Roe's father would then be A -I- B -h X — Y. His mother A + B'-l- 

 X' — Y'. These added numbers mark the change from what these 

 two ought to have been or would naturally have been toward 

 what they are. How much of this is inherited? How do these 

 characters affect Richard Roe? How much of X and Y shall we 

 place in his formula? Some learned investigators, notably 

 August Weismann and Alfred Russell Wallace, say that these 

 changes count for nothing in heredity. X and Y spend their 



