32 THE INHERITANCE OF ACQUIRED CHARACTERS. 



foolish, leaving room for the " deep-lunged children of 

 the fatherland " ? 



Strength comes from surmounting difficulties, weak- 

 ness from being helped over them, or from being 

 unable to conquer them. Is such strength or weak- 

 ness inherited ? If not, much that has been written 

 on social pathology and degeneration must be re- 

 written. A new history of civilization must be writ- 

 ten, a new philosophy of ethics, and a new definition 

 of instinct. 



Is instinct inherited habit, or is it selected habit ? 



Is civilization the inheritance of past successes, or 

 is "civilization a storing-up of achievements : the sum 

 of those contrivances which enable human beings to 

 advance independent of heredity" ? 



Is Neo-Darwinism the " Gospel of Despair " ? The 

 truth is never a cause of despair. What we have 

 gained in Evolution is gained, even though the pro- 

 cess be slower than we had supposed. This gain is 

 the guarantee of future progress. 



"It is plain that the swift spread of science has 

 brought men into a new universe. Few there are that 

 can adorn the new home except with ornaments saved 

 from the old. For most men the universe science 

 tells of rises about them unsightly and barn-like, with 

 bare walls and naked rafters. Until art can beautify 

 the walls, and poetry gild the rafters, men will have 

 that appalling feeling of being nowhere at home, that 

 awful sinking as if the bottom was dropping out of all 

 things." J. A. Ross. 



Every age is henceforth to be an age of trans- 

 ition. In transition lies the growth of the human 



