52 THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 



mind that such influence does not reach the next gen- 

 eration. 



A musician may have taught his fingers to be 

 nimble; may have given them speed of motion and 

 precision in their action. No child of his born after 

 he acquired this wonderful facility of execution is 

 any more likely to be a skilled musician than a child 

 born before he had ever practiced enough to be any- 

 thing more than a crude performer. Science is nearly 

 certain that his children are just as likely to be tal- 

 ented along musical lines if he himself never had be- 

 come a musician, simply because he had it in him 

 to be a musician. In other words, they may inherit 

 the talent which he developed, but they inherited it 

 not because he developed it, but because it was in 

 him to be developed. This is in accordance with the 

 famous principle that there is no inheritance of ac- 

 quired characters. We shall touch this question a 

 little more fully in a later chapter, in speaking of the 

 development of the evolution theory since Darwin's 

 time. 



If we are right in this matter, and we certainly are 

 nearly right, variation must take place for the most 

 part in the germ. These variations may not show 

 until the animal has grown up, but they must have 

 taken place among the determinants in the germ cell 

 or they would not reappear in subsequent generations. 



