ALCOHOLIC SELECTION 93 



tion being rendered more and more inclined to 

 drunkenness by the drinking of preceding genera- 

 tions. The son would inherit his father's capacity 

 for delighting in alcohol, plus the increment caused 

 by the father's drinking. He would make a 

 different start in life, in that he would begin with 

 a greater proneness to drunkenness than the father 

 began with. The grandson would start with the 

 son's initial proneness, plus the increment caused 

 by the son's drinking. This process, repeated for 

 many generations, would evidently render the race 

 so very inclined to drink, and, as a consequence, so 

 very drunken, that, given the opportunity, it would 

 drink to extinction. 



I understate the case however. For the son, 

 owing to his greater capacity for enjoying alcohol, 

 would, as a rule, drink more than the father, and 

 therefore transmit a greater increment of the pre- 

 disposition to drunkenness to the grandson than 

 the father transmitted to him. The same would 

 happen in succeeding generations. The proneness 

 to drink would, therefore, increase, not in arith- 

 metical progression, but in a sort of geometrical 

 progression. The race would rush to ruin. In a 

 very few generations it would become extinct. 

 Exactly the same would happen did parental alco- 

 holism produce filial degeneration. 



On the other hand, if the Lamarckian doctrine 



