JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 35 



SOME MENTAL AND SOCIAL INHERITANCES. 



Read before the Hamilton Association, ijth April, i8gg. 

 BY DAVID BOYLE. 



If the time is not yet quite passed when it is unnecessary to 

 address some audiences in a semi-apologetic manner on subjects 

 more or less intimately associated with the development theory, the 

 time certainly is passed when one need have any fear that by so- 

 doing he is hkely to bring upon himself the condemnation, or, to 

 put it more mildly, the displeasure of those whom he addresses. 

 Neither need he entertain a doubt when thus treating his subject that 

 he is in a measure aiming away above his mark, for now that 

 biological science is studied on the basis of evolution by everybody, 

 or that everybody has, to some extent, become acquainted with this 

 tendency of thought, the popular mind is in a condition of recep- 

 tivity rather than of antagonism. As a matter of course I use the 

 term "everybody" in a quahfied sense, for it is undoubted that 

 there are still those whose prejudices, or whose timidity, place them 

 in an attitude of defiance, or of defence, to the theory in question, 

 just as for a long time there were numerous worthy souls who 

 declaimed against the theory of gravitation. On this occasion my 

 "everybody" embraces the members of the Hamilton Association. 



There can scarcely be a doubt that ever since the dawn of 

 human reason, or, if this be too strong, ever since the observing 

 faculties of man became worthy of the name, it was noted by some 

 that this or the other person was marked by some quality or defect 

 that characterized his father or his grandfather. Of a good runner 

 it would be observed that his father was also one ; and of a poor 

 stone-thrower or bowman, that his son was no better. In primitive 

 conditions of society it would be only along such lines that obser- 

 vations of this kind were made, because in these conditions man's 

 attention wgs solely directed to the procuring of food. 



With advanced conditions, mental traits would claim a share of 



