160 Darwinism and Other Essays. 



hen strutting about as the mother of a brood of 

 eaglets. And yet, if there is no such thing as the 

 transmission of qualities from parent to offspring, 

 we see no reason 1 why these hypothetical cases 

 should not exist as realities. " Unless parents 

 transmitted to offspring their organizations, their 

 peculiarities and excellences, there would be no 

 such thing as a breed or a race. The cur would 

 run the same chance as the best bred dog, of 

 turning out valuable. The greyhound might 

 point, and the cart-horse win the Derby. Daily 

 experience tell us that this is impossible. Science 

 tells us that there is no such thing as chance. 

 Physiology tells us that the offspring always, and 

 necessarily, inherits its organization from its par- 

 ents ; and if the organization is inherited, then with 

 it must be inherited its tendencies and aptitudes." 2 

 This, from one profoundly versed in physiology, 

 expresses what any one, not labouring to establish 

 some preconceived theory, will at once recognize 



1 Lest it should be thought that we do injustice to Mr. Buckle, in 

 giving such a broad significance to his rejection of the law of heredi- 

 tary transmission, we give a definition of that law, taken from one of 

 the greatest thinkers of our time: " Understood in its entirety, the 

 law is that each plant or animal produces others of like kind with 



'itself; the likeness of kind consisting not so much in the repetition of 

 individual traits as in the assumption of the same generic structure." 

 Spencer's Essays, p. 263. 



2 Lewes' Physiology of Common Life, vol. ii. p. 377. 



