V 



HEREDITY OF ACQUIRED CHARACTERS 



{Continued) 



The mass of evidence now to be considered is the " induc- 

 tive". Scientists are perfectly willing to accept this line of 

 proof in other branches of knowledge than biology. 



Thus, physicists tell us they know a good deal about the 

 composition of the sun. Experimental chemical proof is ob- 

 viously out of the question. Their knowledge is based on the 

 accumulation of coincidences. The first discovered was that 

 between the line D in the solar spectrum and the mono- 

 chromatic yellow bar seen in vapourised soda. So far, it was 

 a single or merely remarkable coincidence and nothing more. 

 But when it was found that numerous other elements could be 

 " paralleled " with lines in the spectrum, the coincidences 

 became so numerous that physicists accepted this induction as 

 ample evidence to "prove" that the same substance existed 

 in the sun. 



Similarly is it with all the influences deducible from palaeont- 

 ology, as, e.g., the famous genealogy of the horse from the 

 five-toed primogenital Eohippus, or whatever it may be called, 

 in the eocene strata through a succession of three-toed forms, 

 as the Hipparion, etc., till the one-toed Equus is reached. 



This satisfied Huxley that it undoubtedly indicated the 

 line of Evolution of our domesticated horse of to-day. 



But this conviction is based on purely inductive, that is, 

 accumulative evidences. Any experimental verification of ex- 

 tinct animals is obviously impossible, 



(195) - 



