BOTANICAL SUBJECTS. 53 



<of his hands, in addition to a mental aptitude^ which irradiates its 

 influence over his whole frame, and enables him to avail himself of 

 the " rain of ideas " from all brains capable of evolving anything 

 useful, without any direct inheritance from any particular 

 individual. A genius can give the community much, but it is 

 no longer necessary that he should transmit through a son or 

 •daughter. 



This is how man has been able to outrun every other animal 

 in the race of life. Spontaneous variations, which by degrees 

 enabled him to stand erect and easily move on two legs, released 

 his hands from the function of progression. This accident became 

 the instrument of further modification and improvement in his 

 brain. Another spontaneous variation enabled him to transmit his 

 ideas readily by means of speech, and afterwards by writing, so 

 that numbers might be thinking the same thing, and acting 

 together. By this means, a mntiple brain was incessantly at work 

 modifying and improving, not only the conditions that surrounded 

 man, in conformity with his Avants, but also his own brain. 



These three instruments, the brain, the hand, and speech, with 

 all the other subservient organs have made him, and are continuing 

 to make him more and more fitted to his surroundings, whether of 

 nature or society. The individual is now largely merged in the 

 society, and will continue to be so more and more, as long as this 

 state of things is advantageous to him and to society. Sponta- 

 neous variations, although occurring in the individual, now become 

 social, and the survival of the fittest society will and must continue 

 to occur. 



Nisbet quotes some very extraordinary cases of the same idea 

 occurring synchronously in the two brains of twins, although the 

 one was in Scotland, and the other in England. If there be no 

 doubt about these cases, we must begin to admit that there is 

 some mysterious, and at present inconceivable, way of transmitting 

 ideas, besides speech, action, the press, and telegraphy ; that is, in 

 some such way as the heat and electricity of the sun are trans- 

 mitted to the earth, or that one magnet affects another magnet at 

 a distance. 



From our present knowledge it is not possible to consider this 

 synchronousness of ideas in twin brains, as caused by the fact of 

 their being ttcins. The law of association of ideas is opposed to 

 such consideration, for the chances would be infinity against one, 



