Introduction, 



the same way ; and, what is still odder, when much excited she 

 raised both her hands, with her fingers still moving, to the sides of 

 her face, in exactly the same way as her father had done. Hand- 

 writing depends on several physical and mental habits, and we 

 often see a great resemblance between the handwriting of a father 

 and a son. Even those who have no great powers of observation 

 must often have remarked this. 'Hofacker, in Germany, has 

 remarked that handwriting is hereditary.' The same remark will 

 apply to France; 'and it has even been asserted that English 

 boys, when taught to write in France, naturally cling to their 

 English manner of writing.' x 



What is true of habits is also true of anomalies accidentally 

 acquired, that they are transmissible. Thus a man whose right 

 hand had suffered an injury had one of his fingers badly set He 

 had several sons, each of whom had that same finger crooked. 

 (Blumenbach.) Artificial deformities, too, are transmissible. 

 Three tribes in Peru the Aymaras, the Huancas, and the 

 Chinchas had each their own peculiar mode of deforming the 

 heads of their children, and this deformity has since remained. 

 The Esquimaux, says M. de Quatrefages, cut off the tails of the 

 dogs they harness to their sledges; the pups are often born 

 tailless. 



Notwithstanding these facts, the transmission of acquired 

 modifications appears to be very restricted, even when occurring 

 in both of the parents. A deaf-mute married to a deaf-mute has 

 children who can both hear and speak. The necessity of perform- 

 ing circumcision on Jews shows that an acquired modification, often 

 repeated, is not therefore hereditary. Deviations from a type, 

 alter having subsisted for generations, return to the normal state ; 

 so that many naturalists hold it as a rule that accidental modifi- 

 cations are not perpetuated. 



This is very different to the law formulated by Lamarck : 

 'Whatever Nature has enabled individuals to gain or to lose, 

 under the influence of circumstances to which their race has been 

 long exposed, is preserved, by generation, for the new individuals 



1 Darwin, Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, vol. ii. p. 6. 

 Edition. 1868. 



