14 NATURAL INHERITANCE. [chap. 



chances of holding its own in the struggle for existence, 

 and of establishing itself if its qualities were superior 

 to those of the black stock under any one of many 

 different conditions. 



Inheritance of Acquired Faculties. — I am unpre- 

 pared to say more than a few words on the obscure, 

 unsettled, and much discussed subject of the possibility 

 of transmitting acquired faculties. The main evidence 

 in its favour is the gradual change of the instincts of 

 races at large, in conformity with changed habits, and 

 through their increased adaptation to their surroundings, 

 otherwise apparently than through the influence of 

 Natural Selection. There is very little direct evidence 

 of its influence in the course of a single generation, if 

 the phrase of Acquired Faculties is used in perfect 

 strictness and all inheritance is excluded that could be 

 referred to some form of Natural Selection, or of 

 Infection before birth, or of peculiarities of Nurture 

 and Eearing. Moreover, a large deduction from the 

 collection of rare cases must be made on the ground 

 of their being accidental coincidences. When this 

 is done, the remaining instances of acquired disease 

 or faculty, or of any mutilation being transmitted from 

 parent to child, are very few. Some apparent evidence 

 of a positive kind, that was formerly relied upon, has 

 been since found capable of being interpreted in another 

 way, and is no longer adduced. On the other hand there 

 exists such a vast mass of distinctly negative evidence, 

 that every instance offered to prove the transmission 



