BOTANICAL SUBJECTS. 51 



What is the origin of the so-called " spontaneous variations," 

 upon which natural selection works, and enables the fittest to 

 survive ? 



Whatever the origin of spontaneous variations may be, it now 

 seems a truism to say that in man up to a certain stage of develop- 

 ment, natural selection in the individual must have had its way, as 

 in other animals ; and that these variations, when useful, were 

 perpetuated by transmission from parent to offspring. After a 

 certain stage of advancement, however, the same law does not 

 appear to hold good, for, according to J. E. ISTisbet* and others, 

 any spontaneous good variations of the brain, engendered by mole- 

 cular combinations, are not of much value to the race, for they are 

 not usually inherited. 



It is inconceivable that the same number of atoms, producing 

 the same combinations, should recur in the conjugation of male 

 and female cells, which go to form the entire new individual, and 

 a fortiori it is inconceivable that the same atoms should recur in 

 the same way in the brain of the offspring. Xo, it is not con- 

 ceivable that the qualities of so unstable a mechanism as the brain 

 should be inheritable, but this certainly does not mean that nothing 

 is inherited from any particular brain. 



A genius may not transmit to his offspring his brain qualities, 

 and there, some argue, the selective operation stops, for it cannot 

 be shown that any accumulated good qualities of brain can be 

 transmitted from parent to offspring, as the shape of a leaf or a 

 petal can be transmitted from parent to child. Yet man has 

 continued to improve, in spite of the spontaneous variations of his 

 brain not being usually inheritable, and, therefore, not following 

 the laws of natural selection. 



Then, by what sort of magic has man improved so much, 

 as to be enabled to conquer nature, and be what he is to-day, if 

 every advance in his brain power is thrown away and lost by the 

 death of the individual. If every time he attempted to climb the 

 ladder he tumbled down to the level of the first step there could 

 ob\-iously have been no advance, according to the theory of 

 evolution, through natural selection. 



If Nisbet's facts are unimpeachable, we may have to ask 

 another question. Why are good spontaneous variations of one 

 brain not transmissible to the descendants of their possessor ? 



" Insanity of Genius." 



D 2 



