XVI ARE ACQUIRED CHARACTERS INHERITED ? 319 



of any mechanic working at his trade, whether black- 

 smith, carpenter, watchmaker, or any other art leading to 

 the use or disuse of special muscles or faculties. If long- 

 continued exercise in one direction leads to increased 

 strength and skill which is passed on to the children, 

 then it ought to be an observable fact that the younger 

 sons should have more strength and skill in their father's 

 business than the firstborn ; but, so far as I know, this 

 has never been alleged. So with men of genius, whose 

 mental faculties have been fully exercised in special direc- 

 tions, whether as men of science, artists, musicians, poets, 

 or statesmen ; if not only the inherent faculty but also 

 the increased power derived from its exercise be inherited, 

 then we ought frequently to see these faculties continu- 

 ously increasing during a series of generations, especially 

 through the younger sons, culminating in some star of 

 the first magnitude. But the very reverse of this is 

 notoriously the case. Men of exceptional genius or 

 mental power or mechanical skill appear suddenly, rising 

 far above their immediate ancestors ; and they are usually 

 followed by successors who, though sometimes great, 

 larely equal their parent, whose pre-eminent powers seem 

 generation after generation to dwindle away to obscurity. 

 As illustrations of this principle we may refer to such men 

 as Brindley, Telford, Stephenson, Bramah, Smeaton, 

 Harrison (inventor of the chronometer), Brunei, Dollond, 

 Faraday, Wren, John Hunter, and many others, who were 

 mostly self-taught, and derived nothing apparently either 

 from the faculties or the acquired powers of their parents. 

 So almost all the great poets, musicians, and artists of the 

 world start up suddenly and leave no equals, far less 

 superiors, among their offspring or their descendants. 

 These various classes of facts not only lend no support to 

 the theory of the transmission of acquired faculties from 

 generation to generation, but are not what we should 

 expect if such transmission were a fact. They certainly 

 serve to throw doubt upon it and to show that inheritance 

 is not such a simple matter as this theory implies ; they 

 may, therefore, prepare the -reader to consider with im- 

 partiality the facts and arguments that have been put 



