242 



is a fundamental and universal law of living Nature, and' 

 there can at least be no doubt that the entire physiological 

 and psychological nature of parents is transmitted, with 

 some modifications, to their children ; this being so, it 

 assuredly follows that disorders or diseases, which are nothing 

 more than modifications of structures already in existence, 

 and of actions already progressing in a vital system, are 

 likewise transmitted, and usually in the form of a predis- 

 position with which the tissues of the children are mysteri- 

 ously branded. In a word, if the physiological and 

 psychological nature of man is inherited and transmissible, 

 so must everything that concerns his pathology, except that 

 which he owes to the influence of external circumstances 

 during his " struggle for life." 



Before concluding I must allude, however briefly, to 

 another and equally important aspect of heredity viz., that 

 concerning the transmissibility of man's moral nature and 

 I approach this subject with considerable diffidence, feeling 

 that I am about to tread on very delicate ground. At the 

 very outset of every study of morals we are met by the 

 mysterious and inextricable problem of free will. I wish it 

 to be distinctly understood, however, that my remarks are 

 made in a purely scientific spirit, and entirely apart from 

 theological dogma or doctrine of any kind. As I have 

 elsewhere stated, if phenomena be reducible to a law, their 

 investigation constitutes a science. Science can only deal 

 with phenomena and experience; and when we come to 

 regard the ultimate causes of any of these groups of natural 

 phenomena, and find them not reducible to law, they 

 transcend experience, and Science pauses paralysed at the 

 very threshold of such an inquiry. But just as science can 

 concern herself with the phenomena which are purely physical 



