THE HEREDITY OF RICHARD ROE. 129 
Wisdom is knowing what to do next, and wisdom may 
exist in humble as well as conspicuous fields of action. 
Again, at the time of Richard Roe’s birth, the for- 
mula of his father was slowly changed, under the re- 
action toward activity or to idleness, 
resulting from his efforts and his en- 
vironment. If it was originally and 
potentially A+B, and that of his father A’+ B, it is 
now no longer so. Changes constantly arise from the 
experiences of life, the stress of environment, the re- 
duction of “mental friction,” the formation of auto- 
matic nervous connections or habits, the growth through 
voluntary effort, the depression from involuntary work 
or idleness, the degeneration through the vitiation of 
nerve honesty caused by stimulants or vice, the deteri- 
oration due to spurious pleasures that burn and burn 
out. 
Each of these may have come to the father of Rich- 
ard Roe, and each one had left its mark on him. The 
fairy’s wand and the fool-killer’s club each leaves an 
indelible trace whenever it is used. Through these in- 
fluences* every man is changed from what he was or 
what he might have been to what he is. 
Changes through 
experience. 
* Let X be the aggregate of gains and Y of losses due to these 
acquired qualities. In the case of the mother these may be X’ 
and Y’. In this case X and Y, X' and Y’, represent large fac- 
tors, but excessively diverse and varying, affecting in some de- 
gree all the qualities contained in the symbols Band B’. Richard 
Roe’s father would then be A+B+X-—Y. His mother A + B'+ 
X’—Y’. These added numbers mark the change from what these 
two ought to have been or would naturally have been toward 
what they are. How much of this is inherited? How do these 
characters affect Richard Roe? How much of X and Y shall we 
place in his formula? Some learned investigators, notably 
August Weismann and Alfred Russell Wallace, say that these 
changes count for nothing in heredity. X and Y spend their 
