6& Heredity, Variation and Genius 



which has once produced a genius there shall be 

 an occasional reversion to a similar rarity of 

 nature. For if the occurrence of genius in a 

 family is evidence of a general dispersion of good 

 normal abilities among its past persons, another 

 lucky, although somewhat different, conjunction 

 of elements may chance to take place despite 

 actual infertility or poor progeny of the particular 

 genius. 



Is the production of germ-tendencies or innate 

 predispositions, when all is said, a matter of com- 

 bination of germ-qualities only ? May it not be 

 also in some degree a question of the influence 

 of the conditions under which the parental con- 

 jugation takes place ; a question, that is, not of 

 obviously material composition only but of the 

 particular occasion and its circumstances, mental 

 as well as physical ? Hitherto the habit has been 

 to think too coarsely of matter and its motions 

 and vastly to underrate their swift and delicate 

 subtilties. It might not be amiss to take account 

 of the state of the body and mind of the agents 

 during the reproductive act, and of their full 

 sympathy or comparative apathy. For it is a 

 function which is nowise uniform in force and 

 quality, being now a performance of dull mechani- 

 cal routine or mere brute-like sensuality, now a 

 passionate transport of the whole natures of two 

 beings merged into one for the moment : a sort 

 of transient love-fusion of separate sexual natures 

 which were originally undivided. And not now 



