458 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



MENTAL INHERITANCE 1 



Br De. MADISON BENTLEY 



CORNELL, UNIVERSITY 



OUE chapter of Sigma Xi has recently invited to its membership 

 some two score persons who have shown themselves to be pos- 

 sessed of such talents and aspirations as the society honors and rewards. 

 Of these new members many have finished their preparatory studies, 

 and are entering upon the independent work of science. It is there- 

 fore suitable upon this occasion that we should consider some one of 

 those qualities that distinguish the person who is engaged in the 

 scholarly pursuit of knowledge. The quality which I have selected is 

 the possession of temporal or historical perspective; and I propose to 

 use, by way of illustration, the subject of mental inheritance. 



Nothing is easier than to exalt beyond its due the present moment. 

 The present is so vivid, so impressive, so intimate, so important for 

 action, as to compel attention; and current means of communication 

 succeed so well in bringing distant lands and deeds within our field of 

 vision that the whole world contributes to the fascination of the passing 

 scene. We all realize this fascination, however much we may set our 

 faces against the vulgar homage paid to the latest mode, the most recent 

 invention, or the last political experiment. We realize it, and, if we 

 are wise, we perceive that the philistine passion for being " up-to-date " 

 (as the street-phrase has it) contains an element of great value — the 

 element of enthusiasm. Scholarly work demands enthusiasm, and 

 every epoch of science has, and, I suppose, will have, its sanctions and 

 its rewards for enthusiastic endeavor. In this regard our own time 

 certainly is not wanting. At a period when the constitution of matter 

 and its elementary forms have, by the discovery of new facts, been 

 brought to the focus of attention ; when the development of living forms 

 through their various stages of growth is observed by methods un- 

 dreamed of by the earlier historians of nature ; when the study of evolu- 

 tion has advanced to the stage of analysis and experiment; when the 

 earth is revealing significant traces of primitive man and his works; 

 when psychology proposes new methods for the study of thought and 

 action and for a comparison of the human with the animal mind ; when, 

 finally, philosophy rests less upon the authority of great names and 

 systems than upon the immediate data of experience, no ardent noviti- 

 ate in science can complain that fate has thrown him upon an age of 



: An address delivered before the Cornell Chapter of Sigma Xi, June 9, 1909. 



