568 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE, 
their descendants.” Again, it seems necessary to think that if organisms habitu- 
ally transmit the detailed peculiarities of their variety, as well as the greater 
peculiarities of their class, order, genus, and species ; that there can be no modi- 
fication of the type, no matter how many divergent modifications may be made, 
for if the typical peculiarities, as well as the minor details of the variety, are thus 
transmitted, it is perfectly manifest that, however many modifications may be 
transmitted, or however often, any change of type, under such circumstances, is 
wholly impossible. It is equally manifest that individual peculiarities, as well as 
peculiarities of the variety, cannot effect such modification, but it will be well to 
close the argument here, with a statement of facts from Mr. Spencer, he says: 
‘‘While, however, the general truth that organisms of a given type, uniformly 
descend from organisms of the same type, is so well established by infinite 
illustrations, as to have assumed the character of an axiom, it is not universally 
admitted that non-typical peculiarities are inherited.” Mr. Spencer, as will be 
seen in the quotations already made, believes that such non-typical peculiarities 
are transmitted, but here he shows that, while there is no dispute among biologists 
about the transmission of typical peculiarities, such transmission of non-typical 
peculiarities, by which alone evolution could be effected, is disputed. Therefore, 
it seems perfectly safe to think that in the face of such dispute, in the absence of 
universally admitted facts, showing that such peculiarities are transmitted, and 
with the transmission of typical peculiarities so infinitely illustrated that the fact 
of its occurrence has assumed the character of an axiom, there is no warrant for 
asserting any change of type resulting from heredity, while, as already shown, 
established facts show it to be impossible. 
But if in view of such considerations, it were possible to conceive of such 
modifications being effected in the inheritance of individual variations, the 
question of the permanence of such changes would become an interesting one, 
and it may be well to examine the facts of biological science on this branch of 
the subject ; and Mr. Spencer’s Biology furnishes all that are needed. He says: 
‘Pursuing the argument further, we reach an explanation of the third general 
truth, namely: that organisms and species of organisms, which, under new con- 
ditions, have undergone adaptive modifications, soon return to something like 
their original structures, when restored to their original conditions. Seeing, as 
we have, how excess of action and excess of nutrition in any part of an organism, 
must affect action and nutrition in subservient parts, and these again in other 
parts, until the reaction has divided and sub-divided itself throughout the or- 
ganism, affecting in decreasing degrees the more and more minute parts, 
more and more remotely implicated, we see that the consequent changes 
in the great mass of the organism must be extremely slow. Hence, if the 
need for the adaptive modification ceases, before the great mass of the organ- 
ism has been much altered in its structure by these ramified but minute reac- 
tions, we shall have a condition in the specially modified part that is not in 
equilibrium with the rest. All the remotely affected organs, as yet but little 
