THE PURPOSE OF LIFE 165 



Heredity, as a subject of study, is still in its infantine 

 stages of development ; even in the laboratory, it is 

 hardly yet started on its way. Indeed, if we are to 

 accept Bacon's dictum, it is only just beginning to be 

 a science, since it is within the working lifetime of 

 men of middle age that it has yielded itself to the 

 experimental methods of investigation. As regards 

 its influence on society as a whole, the subject has 

 scarcely advanced out of an embryonic state. We 

 can only observe, inquire, surmise and draw tentative 

 deductions, according to our several abilities and 

 opportunities. 



The influence of heredity is seen to be at work on 

 all sides of us throughout the animate world ; the races 

 of men offer no exception to the field of its activity. 

 The power of variation, of developing good or evil 

 qualities, of advancing or falling back in inborn value, 

 appears to be an inherent possession of the organic 

 world ; and on these variations heredity plays, as a 

 blind musician chooses his notes to make a tune, trying 

 one and trying another, but always stumbling on under 

 the uncontrollable impulse of creation, till apparently 

 chance sounds fall together, and harmony emerges out 

 of discord. As subtle, as unexplained, as fundamental as 

 gravity seems to be the influence of heredity, wherever 

 we turn and survey the races of men. 



When, during the last century, Lamarck, Darwin 

 and other workers brought to light the facts which led 

 to a renewal of the old idea of the evolution of species, 

 and Darwin and Wallace enunciated the principle which 

 suggested a modus operandi of evolution and revolution- 

 ized modern thought, they could supply no ultimate 



