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Heredity of the Intellect. -\ y 



to a moral principle. Logic, metaphysics, and ; $rfor.als are ^o 

 thoroughly blended together, that the endless variefy-'of humaifi' j 

 knowledge and of human actions would have but one origin, .arid, f 

 however unlike they may be to one another in their phenomeiicTj 

 multiplicity, they would be identical in their rational unity. - 



This coherent theory is, by its own nature, placed out of the 

 reach of all experience and all verification. Attractive as it may 

 be, it has the radical defect of all metaphysics, that we cannot 

 say whether it has any objective, absolute value, or whether it is 

 merely subjective. This, however, is clear, that between this 

 theory and ours no opposition is possible, since each occupies a 

 province of its own, and the world of pure reason begins only 

 where the world of phenomena ends. 



If from this strictly metaphysical theory of reason we descend 

 to the usual doctrine, the joint product of the Scotch school and 

 of French eclecticism, it will be found perfectly reconcilable with 

 the heredity of intellect, even in its highest form. The one 

 fixed and essential point in the vague, loose, and often contradictory 

 system of Reid and Cousin is this, that reason is ' an impersonal, 

 universal, and necessary ' faculty. But it would hardly be possible 

 to name any characters more in accordance with the law of heredity. 

 Without stopping to inquire how the infallible transmission of these 

 characters is explained a question never so much as raised by the 

 eclectic school whether it is connected with some permanent state 

 of the brain, or whether it results from some mysterious operation, 

 it is enough that it is admitted that they are the same, everywhere, 

 always, and in all men. Hence they are specific characteristics; 

 that is to say, it is as much a contradiction in terms to think of a 

 man without reason as of a vertebrate animal without a cerebro- 

 spinal axis. But, as we shall see later, the special property of 

 heredity is precisely this, that it transmits, without exception, all 

 specific characteristics. Thus, if we accept Cousin's theory, there 

 is no faculty of man that is more certainly transmissible than the 

 highest form of intellect reason. For heredity, too, is impersonal, 

 since it preserves the species ; and universal, since it governs the 

 whole domain of life ; and it is one of the forms of inflexible 

 necessity. 



Thus, then, either we place intellect and reason, its highest 



