X.] IN ANIMALS AND MAN 4 1 



very point at which it began in the parent, so that growth in 

 the former can only reach as far as it did in the first ancestor, 

 and this in spite of practice continued through any number of 

 generations. 



The amount of improvement possible in a life-time is very 

 limited. No athlete can by any amount of practice lift a 

 weight of a hundred or even one of twenty hundredweight, 

 although he may be able to raise three or four. And, if our 

 views on heredity be correct, the son of an athlete will have to 

 start at the point at which his father started. For the son, if 

 indeed he inherits his father's gifts, inherits only those with 

 which his father came into the world and not an}" increase 

 which they may have undergone during his lifetime. Un- 

 limited training therefore will only enable the son to lift a 

 weight of three or four hundredweight. 



Biological science asserts, with ever increasing clearness, 

 that there is absolutely no evidence for the assumption until 

 recently so generally received, that acquired characters can be 

 transmitted. It was believed that mutilations were occasionally 

 inherited, but a searching examination has shown that the 

 evidence brought forward will not stand the test of criticism. 

 The results of certain recent experiments, in which the tails of 

 mice were amputated, showed that the offspring, although 

 examined in many hundreds of cases, were invariably normal ^ 



We are therefore compelled to abandon this hypothesis of 

 the transmission of acquired characters, at any rate until it has 

 been supported in some other way. We lose with this view a 

 very convenient principle of explanation, and we must there- 

 fore attempt to understand the phenomena without its aid. 



The question before us is : — How is it possible that such an 

 increase in the musical sense took place as seems necessary to 

 have raised it from the condition met with in the savage up to 

 that found among civilized races at the present day? When we 

 examine this question we are led to inquire whether it is correct 

 to assume that any increase in musical talent has, as a matter of 

 fact, taken place in the course of ages. That such an increase 

 has occurred appears to be a matter of course ; for how could 

 our highly developed music have arisen unless the musical 

 organ had previously become more efficient ? 



^ See Vol. I. pp. 444, 445. 



