CONCLUSION 249 



humility, and veracity lay in the same egg, and came into the 

 world with thee." 



The study of inheritance leaves a fatalistic impression in many 

 minds, and to some extent this is justified. We cannot get away 

 from our inheritance. As the poet Heine said half bitterly, half 

 laughingly, " A man should be very careful in the selection of his 

 parents." On the other hand, although the organism changes 

 slowly in its heritable organisation, it is very modifiable indi- 

 vidually ; and this is man's particular secret — to correct his 

 internal organic inheritance by what we may call his external 

 heritage of material and spiritual influences. 



CONCLUSION 



If there is little or no scientific warrant for our being other 

 than extremely sceptical at present as to the inheritance of 

 acquired characters — or better, the transmission of modifications — 

 this scepticism lends greater importance than ever, on the one hand, 

 to a good " nature," to secure which is the business of careful mating ; 

 and, on the other hand, to a good " nurture," to secure which for our 

 children is one of our most obvious and binding duties : the hope- 

 fulness of the task resting especially upon the fact that, unlike the 

 beasts that perish, man has a lasting external heritage, capable of 

 endless modification for the better, a heritage of ideas and ideals, 

 embodied in prose and verse, in statue and painting, in cathedral 

 and university, in tradition and convention, and above all in 

 society itself. 



