272 Heredity. 



regards this conclusion as materialistic, and, as always occurs in 

 such a case, he sacrifices facts to hypotheses, and argues against 

 heredity. But, as we need have no fears of that bugbear, let us 

 examine the last remaining hypothesis. 



2. This hypothesis regards physiological heredity as the cause 

 of psychological heredity. Of course, we speak here only of the 

 immediate and secondary cause, of cause in the order of pheno- 

 mena that is to say, the invariable antecedent. So understood, 

 this solution appears to us the only one that can be accepted. 



No one questions the influence of the physical on the moral, 

 only it is commonly regarded as transitory, momentary, or at least 

 constantly variable. Thus an excessive absorption of alcohol will 

 produce confusion of thought ; a certain nervous state will cause 

 delirium ; the introduction of hasheesh into the organism will give 

 a feeling of beatitude. These and similar phenomena are very 

 striking, though, in fact, of no great importance. But it is of im- 

 portance to remark that to that habitual, customary state of the 

 organism which we call temperament, or constitution, there must 

 correspond an habitual, customary state of the mind. This admits 

 of no doubt, but it is forgotten. But if we bear in mind the truth 

 that the influence of the physical on the moral is permanent ; that 

 it is exerted by means of infinitesimal, but incessantly renewed 

 acts; that there exists a necessary correlation between those two 

 orders of existence which we call body and soul, and this no less 

 as regards secondary and transient, than as regards fundamental 

 and permanent states, which are, as it were, the ground on which 

 phenomena are projected : we shall see that, a permanent phy- 

 siological state implying a correspondent psychological state, 

 physiological heredity must imply psychological heredity. It were 

 puerile to object here that oftentimes a person resembles one of 

 his parents in feature, form, and temperament, though differing in 

 mind ; for plainly the important point here is the heredity of the 

 organic conditions of the mind, i.e. the brain. As we have seen, 

 the organism is not always transmitted entire, and its transmission 

 presents many puzzling anomalies. 



Physiological heredity will be admitted without hesitation. It 

 seems perfectly natural that the organism which is begotten should 

 be like that which begat it This all understand, or think they 



