66 Heredity. 



quences, and divine the future from the past. It is because man 

 can compare, judge, abstract, generalize, deduct, and form induc- 

 tions, that sciences, religion, art, morals, social and political life, 

 have sprung into being, and have continued their incessant evolu- 

 tion. So wonderful are these faculties, that, by their accumulated 

 results, they have made of man, as it were, a being apart from all 

 the rest of nature. 



The inquiry, therefore, whether these faculties can be hereditary, 

 is an inquiry whether psychological life, in its highest form, is 

 subject to this law of biology. If we take a narrow and superficial 

 point of view, it might appear as if, so far, we had at most proved 

 the heredity of the lower forms of intelligence, and as if we had 

 merely touched the outer margin of the subject ; and it might be 

 said that we have no right to argue from the less to the greater, 

 from the lower to the higher. Now, however, we meet the diffi- 

 culty face to face. 



It cannot, however, be said that the controversy with regard to 

 this point has been very keen. It could only have been maintained 

 by metaphysicians who have for the most part shown the utmost 

 indifference for this subject. The partisans of experience, physio- 

 logists and others, who have treated of heredity, have generally 

 attributed to it the greatest degree of influence. Some, carried 

 away by misdirected zeal, and more concerned about the hypo- 

 thetical consequences of such a doctrine than about its intrinsic 

 truth, have imagined a division of the intellectual faculties, and 

 have withdrawn one portion of it from heredity. According to 

 this theory, which claims the authority of Aristotle, we have two 

 souls, the one sensitive or animal, transmissible like the body, and 

 the other rational or human, 'not dependent on the act of 

 generation/ and which would, therefore, lie wholly beyond the 

 influence of heredity. This hypothesis, now wholly obsolete, needs 

 no discussion. They who maintain it, and Lordat in particular, 

 have shown so clearly that their preconceived opinion would not 

 submit to facts, that criticism is quite superfluous. 



The problem for us is this : Are the higher, like the lower, 

 modes of intellect transmissible ? Are our faculties of abstraction, 

 judgment, ratiocination, invention, governed by heredity, as are 

 our perceptive faculties ? Or, in plainer terms, and in common 



