GENEOLOGICAL. 423 



age think we are fast hastening, for there is at least 

 something to be said biologically for the view that 

 these are but transient acquired characters, like 

 loathsome paint on sound British oak. The veneer 

 on the little boy pictured at the beginning of Cap- 

 tains Courageous was odious, but it soon peeled off 

 on the Cod-Banks, where an appropriate nurture 

 both functional and environmental allowed the 

 constitutional worth to realise itself. 



// there is little scientific warrant for our being 

 other than sceptical at present as to the transmission 

 of acquired characters, this scepticism lends greater 

 importance than ever, on the one hand, to a good " na- 

 ture'' to secure which is the business of careful 

 mating; and, on the other hand, to a good " nur- 

 ture" to secure which for our children is one of our 

 most obvious duties, the hopefulness of the task rest- 

 ing upon the fact that, unlike the beasts that perish, 

 man has a lasting external heritage, capable of end- 

 less modification for the better, a heritage of ideas 

 and ideals embodied in prose and verse, in statue and 

 painting, in Cathedral and University, in tradition 

 and convention, and above all in society itself. 



