38 DARWINISM AND RACE PROGRESS. 



be influenced by a change in the muscle or brain cells 

 of the parent unless this change in some way or 

 another influences the blood, the common go-between. 

 But the blood is now known to be but a food and 

 oxygen carrier, and an eliminator of used-up pro- 

 ducts. It is like a river laden with vessels carrying 

 corn for the food of the big city, and nothing more. 

 The life, the energy, the character of the body is the 

 sum of the lives, the energies, and the characters of 

 the cells although these necessarily require the 

 nourishment derived from healthy blood just as the 

 life of the city is the sum of the life of its citizens 

 who require the nourishment of the corn. 



Constitutional Change may, though it rarely does, 

 affect the Reproductive Cell. 



Let us suppose that an average healthy man during 

 his lifetime acquires, by use, accident, or disease, some 

 change in his right arm. There is no reason to sup- 

 pose that the sexual cells, rather than any other cells 

 in the body, will be affected. If, on the other 

 hand, this local change in the arm affects the blood, 

 depriving it of nutritive power, or casting into it 

 obnoxious matter, then it is possible that all the cells 

 of the body may be affected. We have many in- 

 stances of such a thing, as when the blood and whole 

 'constitution are involved after maybe a primary local 



