THEORIES OF MENTAL EVOLUTION 271 



in a ganglion of purely physical stimuli should result in 

 consciousness. It is equally difficult to understand why the 

 mere compounding of reflexes should necessarily result in 

 desire, memory, reason. His statement is a signal instance 

 of that " scandalous vagueness " which Professor James has 

 so feelingly denounced. 1 Mr. Lewes' alternative hypothesis 

 is intelligible, but is quite as opposed to the evidence. Were 

 acquired mental characters transmissible the human race 

 would long ago have lost, indeed would never have achieved, 

 that mental "plasticity" which is its special endowment. 

 The stereotyped knowledge, beliefs, prejudices, sentiments of 

 the adult would appear in a stereotyped form in the child. 

 A race that had long followed Mumbo-Jumbo would be born 

 with a faith in him innate and ineradicable within measurable 

 time. A race that had long spoken a given language would 

 speak it instinctively, though the children were reared by 

 people who spoke another tongue. There would be no deaf 

 mutes, for, however deaf, the mutes would still talk instinct- 

 ively. A race that lived under conditions (e. g. the presence 

 of alcohol or opium) that adversely affected the mind would 

 deteriorate till it perished. 



437. Since mental characters are correlated to physical 

 characters in the brain, every reason that tells against the 

 hypothesis that physical variations are commonly due to the 

 direct action of the environment on the germ-plasm tells 

 equally against the hypothesis that physical variations are 

 so produced. 



1 The Principles of Psychology > vol. i., p. 149. 



