84 Heredity. 



eagerly excited. When a bystander expressed his surprise, he 

 was told that there was nothing remarkable, " his father was the 

 same." ' 



Nor is the transmission of characters less striking when races and 

 species are crossed. As we have seen, when the domestic pig and 

 the wild boar, or the wolf and the dog are crossed, some of the 

 progeny inherit the savage, and others the domestic instincts. 

 Similar facts have been observed by Girou in the crossing of 

 different races of dogs and cats. ' Lord Orford, as is well known,' 

 says Darwin, 'crossed his famous greyhounds, which failed in 

 courage, with a bull-dog this breed being chosen from being 

 deficient in the power of scent. At the sixth or seventh genera- 

 tion there was not a vestige left of the form of the bull dog, but 

 his courage and indomitable perseverance remained.' 1 



The heredity of propensities, instincts, and passions in animals 

 is very good evidence for this form of heredity in man, inasmuch 

 as it does away with all superficial explanations drawn from edu- 

 cation, example, habit, and all those external causes which are 

 supposed to stand in lieu of heredity. And we may remark that 

 this circumstance shows the value of a comparative psychology. 



If, now, we consider man, the first phenomena of the affections 

 with which we meet are those of organic sensibility, or coenaes- 

 thesis, a kind of inner sense of touch whereby we are cognizant of 

 the state of our organs, of the tension of our muscles, and of all 

 muscular exertion in general, of the state of weariness, of pleasure, 

 etc. This universal consciousness of existence, this Gcmeingefiihl, 

 is the -result of an infinite number of internal sensations proceeding 

 from the nerves, the muscles, the circulation, the nutrition in a 

 word, from all those functions the sum of which constitutes what 

 we call our manner of being. 



It cannot be doubted that heredity transmits these sensa- 

 tions ; and it is probably in them that we must look for the true 

 source of all resemblances of character. But these internal states 

 are of so indeterminate a nature that it is almost impossible to 

 prove their transmission. Nevertheless, we believe that the 

 heredity of certain strange propensities, instincts, and dislikes, may 



1 Variation, etc., i. 57. 



