250 THE INDUCTIONS OF BIOl.OiJY. 



combination of sncli cadences, more or less idealized, whici 

 constitutes melody, has all along had a meaning in the average 

 mind, only because of the meaning which cadences had acquired 

 in the average mind ; and that by the continual hearing and 

 practice of melody, there has been gained and transmitted an 

 increasing musical sensibility. Confirmation of this 



view may be drawn from individual cases. Grant that among 

 a people endowed with musical faculty to a certain degree, 

 spontaneous variation will occasionally produce men possessing 

 it in a higher degree ; it cannot be granted that spontaneous 

 variation accounts for the frequent production, by such highly- 

 endowed men, of men still more highly endowed. On the 

 average, the offspring of marriage with others not similarly 

 endowed, will be less distinguished rather than more distin- 

 guished. The most that can be expected is, that this unusual 

 amount of faculty shall re-appear in the next generation undi- 

 minished. How then shall we explain cases like those of Bach, 

 Mozart, and Beethoven, who were all sons of men having un- 

 usual musical powers, but who greatly excelled their fathers 

 in their musical powers ? What shall we say to the facts, 

 that Haydn was the son of the organist, that Hummel was 

 born to a music master, and that Weber's father was a dis- 

 tinguished violinist ? The occurrence of so many cases in 

 one nation, within a short period of time, cannot rationally 

 be ascribed to the coincidence of '^ spontaneous variations." It 

 can be ascribed to nothing but inherited developments of 

 structure, caused by augmentations of function. 



But the clearest proof that structural alterations caused by 

 alterations of function, are inherited, occurs when the alter- 

 ations are morbid. " Certain modes of living engender gout ; '' 

 and gout is transmissible. It is well known that in persons pre- 

 viously healthy, consumption may be produced by unfavourable 

 conditions of life — by bad and insufficient food ; by foul, damp, 

 unventilated habitations; and even by long-continued anxiety. 

 It is still more notorious that the consumptive diathesis is 

 conveyed from parent to child. Unless, then, a distinction 



