VIEWS OF G ALTON AND WEISMANN ON INHERITANCE 1 49 



genetic line in remote generations is also rare and exceptional ; 

 for the posterity of most of the living beings that now exist is 

 destined to speedy extinction. 



While we may discover nothing in the modern world to draw 

 together those individuals which, if they were so drawn together, 

 might become the parents of the fittest, this is no evidence that 

 the fittest may not be, in the long run, the descendants of ances- 

 tors who did bring together characteristics which, when thus 

 intensified, were so transmitted to posterity as to give to this 

 posterity an advantage over their competitors in the struggle for 

 existence. 



