70 THOUGHTS UPON THE MUSICAL SENSE, ETC. [X. 



may look forward, — the conquests of the mind of man will never 

 cease. 



Lastly I trust that the scientific man may be excused if, in 

 this essay, he has entered into what may appear to be a verj'- 

 distant region. Nevertheless it was a purely scientific question 

 which led him into this mquiry — the question of the hereditary 

 transmission of acquired characters. He attempted to explain, 

 without any transmission of the results of practice, the existence 

 of those human faculties which cannot be explained by the 

 process of selection. This led to the explanation of the origin 

 of the musical sense which has been adopted in this essay. 

 Perhaps the opinions of a biologist may not be altogether 

 devoid of interest for the philosopher and the musical critic. 

 The questions treated of lie on the boundary between science 

 and philosophy, and can hardly be solved from either province 

 alone. 



