xii.] SUMMARY. 197 



Finally, considerations were offered to show that 

 latent elements probably follow the same law as personal 

 ones, and that though a child may inherit qualities from 

 any one of his ancestors (in one case from this one, and 

 in another case from another), it does not follow that the 

 store of hidden property so to speak, that exists in any 

 parent, is made up of contributions from all or even 

 very many of his ancestry. 



Two other topics may be mentioned. Eeason 

 was given in p. 16 why experimenters upon the 

 transmission of Acquired Faculty should not be dis- 

 couraged on meeting with no affirmative evidence 

 of its existence in the first generation, because it 

 is among the grandchildren rather than among the 

 children that it should be looked for. Again, it is 

 hardly to be expected that an acquired faculty, if 

 transmissible at all, would be transmitted without dilu- 

 tion. It could at the best be no more than a variation 

 liable to Eegression, which would probably so much 

 diminish its original amount on passing to the grand- 

 children as to render it barely recognizable. The 

 difficulty of devising experiments on the transmission 

 of acquired faculties is much increased by these 

 considerations. 



The other subject to be alluded to is the funda- 

 mental distinction that may exist between two 

 couples whose personal faculties are naturally alike. 

 If one of the couples consist of two gifted mem- 

 bers of a poor stock, and the other of two ordinary 

 members of a gifted stock, the difference between 



