38 ARE THE EFFECTS OF USE INHERITED ? 



of inheritance at corresponding periods ; and, 

 together with the unusual promptness and com- 

 parative completeness of the inheritance, it may 

 indicate a special injury or deterioration of the 

 reproductive elements rather than true inherit- 

 ance. The healthy brain of . early life has failed 

 to transmit its robust condition. Is use-inherit- 

 ance, then, only effective for evil ? Does it only 

 transfer the newly-acquired weakness, and not 

 the previous long-continued vigour ? 



(2) Members of nervous families would be liable 

 to suffer from nervous prostration, and by the 

 ordinary law of heredity alone would transmit 



Nervousness to their children. 



I 

 (3) The shattered nerves or insanity resulting 



from alcoholic and other excesses, or from over- 

 work or trouble, are evidently signs of a grave 

 constitutional injury which may react upon the 

 reproductive elements nourished arid developed 

 in that ruined constitution. The deterioration in 



