TRANSMISSION OF MODIFICATIONS 361 



relative intensity of their inheritance, and second, the opportun- 

 ities for their development. 



The achievements of a race under one environment, therefore, 

 cannot be considered as limiting, or even very closely indicating, 

 its possibilities under another, and we never know the possibili- 

 ties of a race until we have seen it bred and reared under a 

 great variety of conditions, all of which is but another way 

 of saying that vastly more is present and transmitted than even 

 keen observers are aware of. Everything that belongs to the 

 race is always present and is always transmitted in some degree. 

 It is sheer business folly, as well as bad science, to conceive of 

 characters as being lost for generations, then appearing again. 



Whatever the individual comes to be, therefore, in his adult 

 state, he is to be regarded as the repository of all the charac- 

 ters of his race, only a few of which have reached anything 

 like their highest possible development in his particular per- 

 sonality, and many of which remain so undeveloped as to be 

 unnoticed perhaps throughout his entire lifetime. That they are 

 potentially present, however, is attested by his descendants. 



Highly differentiated races are so rich in possibilities and so 

 great in their range of characters, that the lifetime of any indi- 

 vidual is too short, and his environment too circumscribed, to 

 realize more than a fraction of his possibilities ; but he transmits 

 the remainder as an undeveloped heritage to his descendants. 

 WJiat now, if any, is the effect upon transmission, of the particular 

 development that he has realized in his own personality f Will 

 the special characters that he has strongly developed be transmitted 

 with increased intensity because of their recent extreme develop- 

 ment, or will this development have no effect tipon their initial 

 powers in the next generations ? This is the one question we 

 repeatedly ask ourselves, for it is the one we most desire to 

 answer. 



Degree of development depends upon both germinal and environ- 

 mental influences. The evolution of a mature and adult individual 

 from a fertilized germ is' to be regarded as essentially a process 

 of development. It has been shown that all differences between 

 adult individuals of the same race are due to the degree of 

 development which the racial characters have been able to attain. 



