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here given as one among many facts based upon pathological 
changes that may be placed side by side with those so-called normal 
physiological acts and physical peculiarities of structure which are 
so often seen passing through several generations especially by ties 
of consanguinity. 
In other words, this fault of optic-nerve structure, which does not 
show itself for several years after the birth of the individual, indi- 
cates to the writer’s mind at least that here there is an inheritance 
of a physical material which is not only shorter lived than that 
which is found in the same organ in other organisms, but that it has 
a briefer existence than the other organs in the same general organ- 
ism ; a fault which shows that an imperfect material has been born, 
and dies prematurely because it is subjected to an amount of wear 
and tear that would not seriously disturb or injure a properly formed 
substance. Further, it serves as a living evidence that a substance 
has been improperly made most probably on account of physical 
imperfection and repetition of faulty cell combination of similar 
kind extending through several generations; an evidence which in 
measure says that primarily acquired pathological characteristics of 
structural form may be transmitted through forthcoming generations 
as imperfect formation of similar structure in due proportion to 
both the want of hygiene and care given to the afflicted subjects 
and the reassociation of similarly degraded developmental cells ; an 
evidence which gives answer in part to the transmission of ordinary 
structural characteristics, which, if acted upon in the same way as 
those which are not made, as it were, in the same peculiar manner, 
will produce far different and even what may be termed idiocratic 
results. 
In other words, this disease, for example, which manifests itself 
as faulty transmission, teaches us conversely that a peculiar physical 
condition which has been obtained from frequently repeated physio- 
logical acts during the life existence of some antecedent containing 
animal form, may be transmitted to the offspring (more particularly 
by consanguineous ties of the parents) and thus render the new or- 
ganism more capable of evolving certain definite acts that are the 
physiological representatives of heredity of physical structure; the 
partial answer at least for so-termed hereditary genius. 
