418 PROGRESS OF SCIENCE IN THE CENTURY. 



acquired characters. Yet, in fairness, we must note 

 how little we understand the influences which pass 

 in the other direction from reproductive organs to 

 body, and recall Lloyd Morgan's warning that al- 

 though we cannot conceive how a modification might 

 as such saturate from body to germ-cells, this does 

 not exclude the possibility that it may actually 

 do so. 



Particular Evidence For. — Let us now give a few 

 examples of the particular or a posteriori evidence in 

 favour of the inheritance of acquired characters, 

 and to suggest some of the difficulties which rob the 

 evidence of cogency. 



It has been stated that the Panjabis of India show 

 certain peculiarities of musculature and skeleton 

 which are plainly related to the frequency with which 

 these people assume on all possible occasions the 

 squatting posture. Like so many other pieces of so- 

 called evidence this does not tell one enough, e.g., 

 whether the peculiarities are seen on new-born Pan- 

 jabi babes, and whether the peculiarities appear to 

 be on an increase. As it stands, the evidence is quite 

 inconclusive, and we may place against it the case 

 of the compressed foot of Chinese ladies — in regard 

 to which we have likewise few satisfactory details, 

 but certainly not as yet any evidence that the long- 

 continued deformation has resulted in any heredi- 

 tary change in the Chinese baby's foot. The alleged 

 dwindling of the little toe has been impetuously in- 

 stanced as a case in point — as a case of the inherit- 

 ance of a modification produced by tight boots. But 

 there is no satisfactory evidence; a dwindling has 

 also been alleged in savages who do not wear boots; 

 it is possible that there is in man as there was in the 

 horse a congenital variation in favour of reduction 



