1248 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



variations. When we study heredity, a fatalistic mood grows upon 

 us in spite of ourselves. The consequences are so far-reaching, lasting 

 in so many cases to the third and fourth generation, and far beyond 

 that; we feel that all we can do is to "dree our weird". But the 

 fatalistic impression must be corrected by even deeper study. In 

 the first place, it is commonsense to recognise that the springs of 

 conduct that we inherit give us sweet water as well as bitter. We 

 have a vast inheritance of wholesome buds as well as an inheritance 

 of some that were better left sleeping. And then again, character- 

 istics that are progressive tend on the whole to be persistent, more 

 lasting than characteristics that are disintegrative and deteriorative. 

 Disharmonies do not last so well as harmonies, which is a hopeful 

 fact. Then there is the idea, which was emphasised by Sir Frederick 

 Mott, that certain deteriorative characteristics exhibit what he 

 called the law of anticipation, appearing earlier and earlier in life as 

 generation succeeds generation. They maj^ find an outcrop in very 

 early stages of development, and in some cases they become lethal 

 — that is to say, they put an end to the organism, which may be 

 from the racial point of view a good riddance. Furthermore, our 

 social heritage, which marks us off from the beasts, is capable of 

 improvement without limit so far as we know, and may help to 

 counteract deficiencies in our natural inheritance. 



But what is the biggest fact on the plus side? It is the continual 

 emergence of variations. Throughout the animal world, except in 

 a few conservative, well-adjusted types, variations are always 

 cropping up, as everyone knows who has studied species even for 

 a short time. Many species are in a state of flux, always turning up 

 something new, and these variations, so very marked in mankind, 

 are the raw materials of a possible evolution. Our duty is to give 

 human variations a welcome if they look at all promising. We 

 cannot produce these novel buds, but we can welcome them ; we can 

 prevent them from being frost-bitten, which they so often are. The 

 other side of heredit}^ so to speak, is the continual emergence of 

 the new. We have no recipe for genius, but it would be some- 

 thing if we were more determined to cease from starving genius 

 when it appears. It is tragic that an original mind, sending 

 new tendrils into the future, often fails because these find no 

 support. 



Of course social variations are different from biological variations. 

 Social variations correspond to what is seen in an anthill, in a 

 termitary, in a beehive. For instance, when a colony of ants takes 

 to slave keeping that is a social variation, and similar social variations 

 are frequent in mankind. But some other social variations, which 

 lead to new movements and new departures, depend upon a bio- 

 logical variation, for instance, on the emergence of an individual man 

 or woman of a particular pattern who is full of new ideas and has 



