472 



GENERATION. 



and comparing the amount of hereditary in- 

 fluence exerted by one or other of the parents. 

 The hybrid usually combines to a certain ex- 

 tent the qualities of its father and mother, as 

 in the familiar example of the common mule 

 between the male ass and the mare, or in the 

 product of the tiger and the lion, the dog and 

 wolf, the pheasant and black grouse, the gold 

 and common pheasant, and others. In some 

 mules the qualities of the father predominate, 

 in others those of the mother ; but so far as 

 we are aware, the isolated facts regarding this 

 point have not yet been brought under any 

 general law. 



It has been asserted that acquired qualities, 

 whether mental or bodily, of the parents are 

 capable of being transmitted to their offspring. 

 Thus the superiority of a civilized over a bar- 

 barous nation is said to depend, not solely on 

 the influence of an advanced state of educa- 

 tion upon each new comer, but also on the 

 greater natural powers of the children, derived 

 from their parents at the moment of their 

 production, or, in other words, the greater 

 capability of the children to receive the higher 

 mental acquirements and more refined ideas 

 belonging to the civilized condition of society. 



Farther, it is asserted that dogs and cats 

 which have accidentally lost their tails have 

 brought forth young ones with a similar de- 

 formity. Blumenbach affirms that a man who 

 had lost his little finger had children with the 

 same defect. A wound of the iris and a defor- 

 mity of the finger occasioned by whitlow are 

 said to have been transmitted. The well-trained 

 pointer of this country produces a puppy 

 much more capable of being trained than the 

 dogs of the original breed. The retriever spaniel 

 and the shepherd's colly are said to do the 

 same. Well-broken horses produce docile 

 foals, and lastly, the young of foxes living in 

 hunting countries are naturally much more 

 circumspect than those living in countries 

 where they are not exposed to the danger of 

 pursuit. 



We look upon all these alleged facts with 

 distrust. Many of them are coincidences; 

 others, we suspect, are false. It is obviously 

 insufficient for our purpose to ascertain the 

 qualities of the one generation which is born. 

 We must also know to what circumstances 

 the parent may have owed its peculiarity. We 

 feel convinced that education more than any 

 other circumstance has influenced the superior 

 powers of the animals above alluded to, and 

 there is no proof that the parent did not 

 possess the same capabilities or natural powers 

 as the offspring. 



There are, on the other hand, innumerable 

 instances which shew that acquired alterations 

 of structure are not transmitted. How many 

 men are there who have lost limbs and yet 

 have produced children in no respect maimed. 

 A quadruped without the fore-legs has borne 

 entire young. A bitch in which the spleen 

 had been extirpated had young possessing that 

 organ. Men with only one testicle have sons 

 with the usual number ; and lastly, the people 

 of nations, the males of which have been cir- 



cumcised during hundreds of years, have chil- 

 dren with foreskins not a bit shorter than those 

 of nations in which no such practice exists. 



The breeding of domestic animals of dif- 

 ferent kinds, suited respectively to the various 

 useful purposes for which they are employed, 

 is a subject connected with the present question 

 of high practical importance ; but unfortu- 

 nately, though some practical men have well 

 understood the proper method to be pursued, 

 it is to be regretted that the facts have never 

 been reduced to general rules, and that the 

 theory has been almost entirely neglected. 



It is generally admitted as a fact proven 

 that in the ox, horse, and other domestic 

 animals the purer or less mixed the breed is, 

 there is the greater probability of its trans- 

 mitting to the offspring the qualities which it 

 possesses, whether these be good or bad. 

 Economical purposes have made the male in 

 general the most important, simply because 

 he serves for a considerable number of females. 

 The consequence of this has been that more 

 attention has been paid to the blood or purity 

 of race of the stallion, bull, ram, and boar 

 than to that of their females ; and hence it may 

 be the case that these males more frequently 

 transmit their qualities to the offspring than do 

 the inferior females with which they are often 

 made to breed. But this circumstance can 

 scarcely be adduced as a proof that the male, 

 caeteris paribus, influences the offspring more 

 than the female. 



Bad as well as good qualities may be trans- 

 mitted, and, therefore, it is obvious that in 

 endeavouring to improve any stock by engraft- 

 ing a good quality, the breeder must choose a 

 male which, besides the requisite good quality, 

 is free from those defects of the female which 

 it is desirable to sink. He must also select a 

 male in the family of which the desired quality 

 has been long resident. He cannot engraft 

 the quality all at once, but must endeavour to 

 introduce it by frequent crossing. 



In the horse, for example, the strength of 

 bone and weight of muscle suitable for slow 

 draught, the light frame and prodigious swift- 

 ness of the race-horse, and the intermediate or 

 rather combined qualities of the carriage-horse, 

 hack, or hunter, are all capable of being pro- 

 duced by proper attention to purity or mixture 

 of breeds. The pace, speed, action, temper, 

 courage, colour or quality of hair, and almost 

 all other qualities may be increased, dimi- 

 nished, or altered by a judicious admixture of 

 different races. So also the immense weight 

 of beef and fat of the large ox, the flavour 

 of the flesh, the abundance or richness of the 

 milk of the cow, are subject to modification in 

 every different breeding. 



The economical breeder, then, while he has 

 settled in his mind the object which he wishes 

 to accomplish in any of his stocks, must hold 

 in recollection that it is only by the combi- 

 nation and continued succession of good qua- 

 lities that he can ensure a permanent improve- 

 ment. He must not expect to be able to 

 effect this by crossing the breed of an impure 

 blooded or worn-out female with a male of 



