HEREDITY AND RACE-IMPROVEMENT. 173 



own thoughts ; as for her, if she cannot talk, she is undone. The in- 

 stinct of imitation is in an inverse ratio to the power of mental ab- 

 straction. 



From these details it will be seen that this strong instinctive force 

 of imitation, which plays so important a part in the education of in- 

 dividuals and of races, is a very different thing from heredity. It 

 may and it does ttct in concert with hereditary impulsions ; but far 

 more frequently it works independently and even in a direction coun- 

 ter to them. And the same is to be said of another force — a more 

 determined rival still, and a more puissant antagonist of heredity, 

 viz., personality, whose functions we have next to consider. 



The individual personality of the soul, which is preeminently the 

 instrument of free inventiveness and the unfailing spring of the in- 

 novative faculty, might, in contrast with heredity, be called spontane- 

 ity. 1 To give a notion of the power of spontaneity, as compared 

 with that of heredity, we might draw up lists exhibiting cases in 

 which the manifestation of various passions or talents does not come 

 from ancestry, and in which the individual is born different from his 

 parentage, or distinguishes himself from them by the reaction of his 

 own will. Such lists would be endless ; for, the opinion of the parti- 

 sans of absolute heredity to the contrary notwithstanding, sponta- 

 neity and personal activity are the rule in the development of the 

 mind. In short (and this is the main point), heredity has its root in 

 spontaneity ; for, after all, those aptitudes, those qualities, which par- 

 ents transmit to their children, must necessarily have originated, at 

 some time, from the spontaneous action of a more or less independent 

 will. "We hear of idiots, and of hysterical and epileptical subjects, 

 or, on the other hand, of painters, musicians, and poets, who derive 

 from their parentage the sinister or the beneficent activities which 

 characterize them. True enough ; but the question for us is, Whence 

 did the parents themselves derive this activity ? In taking a retrospec- 

 tive view of the ascendants, we must reach the point where spontaneity 

 is preeminent ; and this preeminence is all the less questionable in pro- 

 portion as it reappears in the descendants. The effects of heredity ap- 

 pear and disappear ; at first, they overmaster spontaneity, suspending its 

 influence; then they are exhausted, and spontaneity again reclaims its 

 rights. Thus spontaneity is a continuous, persisting force, while he- 

 redity is intermittent and transitory. Human nature, considered in its 

 progress from age to age, is a succession of independent minds, all the 

 more independent in proportion as they have less need of the concur- 

 rence of mechanical or organic powers in willing and acting. Where 

 they require such concurrence, a portion of their innate independence 

 is surrendered to the blind influences of heredity. And yet, even as 

 regards the origin of aesthetic aptitudes, spontaneity is the stronger 

 of the two. 



1 Spontaneous. Produced without being planted. — (Webster.) Native, innate. 



