Heredity, Variation and Genuis 47 



cesses of the various parts of a living organism. 

 As the so-called internal secretions of organs 

 regularly pour into the circulating fluids of the 

 body unstable substances which in continual flux 

 of compositions and decompositions, by means of 

 numerous and various fermenting enzymes, excite 

 or inhibit its functions in various subtile and yet 

 inscrutable ways — each organ, too, perhaps, con- 

 tributing specially acting chemical agents to do 

 its special work — it is hard to believe that any part 

 of it lies outside physical and chemical influence. 



All the more hard seeing that when the repro- 

 ductive organs at puberty begin to form the pre- 

 cious cells destined to continue the species their 

 activity is accompanied by, if it does not cause, 

 a profound modification of the whole mental and 

 physical being. Youth and maiden, instinct with 

 the productive energy of Nature, then feel and 

 think as they never felt and thought before, being 

 thrilled with new sensibilities by virtue of nervous 

 subtile changes yet undetectable by the nicest 

 aids to sense ; with which changes of adolescence 

 go along fresh sensibilities to the social environ- 

 ment and physical growths of moral feeling that 

 were lacking in the child. 



A third objection proper to be taken into 

 account is that such gross and manifest deteriora- 

 tions of parents as bodily mutilations and injuries, 

 scars, pierced or cut ears or noses, artificially 

 deformed feet and waists, docked ears and tails, 

 and the like, cannot rightly be called acquired 



