152 ARE THE EFFECTS OF USE INHERITED? 



that modern progress and prosperity are improving 

 the people in various respects by their direct action ; 

 but if use-inheritance has any share in effecting this 

 improvement it must also transmit increased wants 

 and more luxurious habits, together with such evils 

 as have already been referred to. As depicted by 

 its defenders, use-inheritance transmits evils far 

 more powerfully and promptly than benefits. It 

 transmits insanity and shattered nerves rather than 

 the healthy brain which preceded the breakdown. 

 It perpetuates, and cumulatively intensifies, a 

 deterioration in the senses of civilized men, but it 

 fails to perpetuate the rank vigour of various plants 

 when too well nourished, or the flourishing condition 

 of various animals when too fat or when tamed. It 

 already transmits the short-sight caused by so 

 modern an art as watchmaking, but so fails to 

 transmit the long-practised art of seeing (as it does 

 of walking and talking) that vision is worse than 

 useless to a man until he gradually acquires the 



