106 Hei'edity, Variation and Genius 



whose concern it is to provide for the welfare and 

 development of the species. Perhaps, after all, 

 the responsibility of the individual mortal either 

 to the species or to himself is not really so great 

 as he is commonly apt to imagine ; drifting help- 

 lessly or struggling strenuously amid the tiny 

 splashes he makes he is borne along in the stream 

 of being from everlasting to everlasting ; nay, there 

 sometimes perchance leaps up an evanescent flash 

 of feeling that he is what he was predestined from 

 all eternity to be, and could not have been other- 

 wise. 



Before yielding full consent to the doctrine 

 that the person who consistently develops or 

 debases his nature by a life of virtuous or vicious 

 actions does not in the least affect the constitu- 

 tional inclinations of his offspring, it will be well 

 to note and weigh such observations and reflec- 

 tions as point to a different and perhaps more 

 acceptable conclusion. Pertinent facts there are 

 to suggest, although not sufficient to prove, that 

 the parent who is engrossed in the exclusive 

 development of a particular strain of character, 

 other qualities being starved thereby, is not un- 

 likely to engender insanity or other degeneration 

 in his offspring by transmitting a heritage of con- 

 stitutional defect or instability to issue badly in 

 x the circumstances of life. Cultivated hypocrisy 

 ( of thought and conduct, habitual deceit and self- 

 \ deception, constant insincerity to facts and selfish 

 absorption in egoistic aims and work, passionate 



