HEREDITY AND EUGENICS. 281 
have yet given attention to this problem, but seem ready to 
carry the laws discovered for physical life right over into the 
sphere of mind. Mr. Bateson, the biologist, unquestioningly 
places not only lower consciousness but intelligence and morals 
side by side with physical characteristics in relation to trans- 
mission (Genetics, p. 34); Dr. McDougall, the psychologist, 
assumes heredity for mental qualities “in much the same sense 
and degree as for physical” (Sociological Papers, III); and Sir 
Francis Galton formulates as a leading article in the programme 
of Eugenics “the fact that the laws of heredity apply to man 
equally with the lower animals and plants, and that the mental 
functions are subject to the same laws of heredity as the 
physical ones ” (Programme of the Hugenics Education Society). 
My own opinion is that in the lower ranges of mind the 
contention for Heredity is plausible, and that it is gaining in 
credibility apart from the suggestions of biology. There do 
appear to be root-instincts, elementary tendencies to action, 
primary feelings, which are fundamental as the germ-plasm is 
fundamental, and their reappearance in successive generations 
suggests the operation of transmission, and further, that there 
are some relatively superficial masses of mental “stuff,” so to 
speak, carried onward by these deeper elements. And it is also 
certain that these tend to form fixed assemblages of qualities 
after the manner of Mendelic fixed characters; so that the 
process by which generation is linked to generation may be 
that of inheritance of root-characters, and variations may be 
perpetuated by selection for utility as natural selection indi- 
cates, and by fixity as the Mendelic law describes. But the 
field requires long and extended work if inductive verification 
is to be added to these general conjectures, and the peculiar 
feature involved in the intervention of higher ranges of 
consciousness must be kept constantly in view, and be expected 
to result in limits to heredity being drawn, which will cause 
the mental sphere as a whole to present a very considerably 
different view to that given by the sphere dealt with by biology. 
For those who see nothing in mind but a stream of feelings, 
activities, and operations of intelligence the problem ends here. 
For these all is nature, and Heredity prevails wherever either 
life or mind is found, as we have seen. But the very crux of 
the problem stands yet unsolved for the Spiritualist, whether as 
philosopher or as religious believer. These are concerned to 
keep in view the conception of mind as in its essence 
spiritual, and therefore not within the nature-process. For the 
principal tenet of both philosophy and religion is that the 
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