86 Heredity, Variation and Genius 



itself demonstrably active may actually by its 

 mere presence in the germ modify in unknown 

 ways the action of another. 



In this connection serious account ought obvi- 

 ously to be taken of the surroundings in which the 

 particular person has grown and lived. A large 

 and varied environment, affording the occasions 

 of suitable adaptations and free developments to 

 innate tendencies, may contribute to raise one 

 brother to eminence when another of perhaps 

 nearly equal natural capacity, enjoying no such 

 advantages but doomed to live in a narrow and 

 stifling mental environment, either vents his innate 

 impulses only in anti-social irregularities or suffers 

 a mental breakdown from their uniform suppres- 

 sion. The quality which would have been an 

 excellence in propitious, becomes a cause of dis- 

 order in adverse, circumstances. It is nowise im- 

 probable that more than one inglorious Napoleon 

 has ended his days on the scaffold. 



Whether the faith which is now largely put in 

 Mendelian rules of inheritance is fully justified, 

 whether in fact we are to accept them as the rules 

 of a true law, is a question to be answered posi- 

 tively by future researches. Certainly the ripe 

 fruits of maturity will be invaluable if the hopes 

 of a budding promise are fulfilled. Meanwhile 

 the assumption to be made is that a definite unit- 

 character is separable from the organic unity of 

 every plant and animal ; that every disparted 

 unit-character is transmitted independently in re- 



