SPENCER'S THEORY. 141 



can also be drawn from the case of neuter insects 

 a fact which seems to have escaped Darwin's 

 notice, although he had seen how strongly that 

 case was opposed to the doctrine which is the 

 essential basis of the theory of pangenesis. 



SPENCER'S EXPLANATION OF USE-INHERITANCE. 



Mr. Spencer's explanation of the inheritance of 

 the effects of use and disuse (p. 36) is that " while 

 generating a modified consensus of functions and of 

 structures, the activities are at the same time im- 

 pressing this modified consensus on the sperm-cells 

 and germ-cells whence future individuals are to be 

 produced " a proposition which reads more like 

 metaphysics than science. Difficult to understand 

 or believe in ordinary instances, such consensus-'m- 

 heritance seems impossible in cases like that of 

 the hive-bee. Can we suppose that the consensus 

 of the activities of the working bee impresses 



