62 PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES ON 



The reply is — simply because, after a certain advance in civili- 

 zation, such a transmission — from father and mother to son and 

 daughter — ivas no longer needed, and might be injurious to the 

 community. Nevertheless, the good brain qualities of the indi- 

 vidual are not lost to the community, for speech, and now the 

 press, can transmit their products to any receptive brain of any 

 individual who can interpret those symbols. It is then that indi- 

 vidual who becomes the inheritor of any advantages, resulting from 

 any " spontaneous variations," which may occur in the brain 

 of a genius ! 



Among mechanicians, it is the commonest thing for one man, 

 through speech or press, to inherit another man's inventions ; and 

 now, all biological thinkers have inherited the advantages resulting 

 from Darwin's genius. 



Man as a wild, solitary animal would be nowhere. It is his 

 social aspect which gives him his power, not only over nature, but 

 also over himself. And, therefore, when we talk of inheritance, it 

 is the community that we have to take into consideration, and not 

 the children only, which are the immediate descendants of the 

 possessor of useful spontaneous variations. 



Ideas are obviously not like bones and muscles. They can, 

 like magnetism, be transmitted from one end of the earth to the 

 other, through their symbols, and enter another person's brain, and 

 work their own sweet will, independently of the brain and person 

 in whom they originated. 



Nisbet seems to think that molecular changes in the brain of a 

 genius, being too unstable, cannot be inherited as horns, and hoofs, 

 and muscles, &c., are ; and that, therefore, neither sexual selection 

 nor natural selection can have anything to do mth them. It is 

 said that they are spontaneous variations, following an atomic law 

 in the individual and not transmissible by heredity. 



"What does that matter ? They may not be transmissible from 

 parent to child, but their results — ideas — can be and are trans- 

 mitted from the brain of one individual to that of another. Nay, 

 this mode of transmission is far superior to that of heredity, for 

 good ideas can be transmitted to many brains of different races, 

 without the mixture of other bad qualities, which might come with 

 inheritance, and so they stand a vastly better chance of falUng on 

 good soil, which may be fitted to enlarge and improve them ! What 

 man requires to inherit now is his erect position, and the freedom 



