The American Naturalist. [May, 



i of protoplasm. It is one of the ultimate facts of the 

 universe. When Prof. Bald win admits that an animal can select which 

 of two muscles it will use, or when he admits that an animal can con- 

 tract any muscle under the stimulus of "pleasure, pain, etc., he admits 

 this ultimate fact, but does not explain it. 



As to the scope of Social Heredity as a factor in psychic evolution, it 

 appears to me to be, like that of the higher intelligence, mainly 

 restricted to the higher animals and to man. Maternal instruction 

 among all but the higher animals probably has no existence. Imita- 

 tion may be supposed to be possible to animals a little lower in the 

 scale. But both factors are to my mind only supplementary to the 

 more vigorous education furnished by the environment, with its wealth 



ing Social Heredity as the sole factor of psychic evolution, Prof. Bald- 

 win temporarily loses sight of the intimate connection between mind 

 and its physical basis. The inheritance of mental characteristics ta M 

 much a fact as the inheritance of physical structure, and for the reason 

 that the two propositions are identical. One does not believe in either 

 education or imitation as a cause of the repetition of insanity in family 

 lines. We rather believe in a defective brain mechanism, which is 

 inheritable, though fortunately not always inherited. The doctrine of 

 Weismann that acquired characters are not inherited, if true, would 

 furnish the physical conditions for the theory that Social Heredity is 

 the only psychic heredity, but it is impossible to believe that Weis- 

 mann's doctrine is true. Hence while Social Heredity is true as far as 

 it goes, Lamarkism is also true, and expresses the more fundamental 

 law. The fact that no adequate physical explanation of the inheritance 

 of acquired characters has been reached does not disprove the fact. 



E. D. ObPJS. 



ANTHROPOLOGY. 1 



Indian habitation in the Eastern United States.— Mr. 

 Thomas Wilson of the Smithsonian Institution in a recent letter refer- 

 ingto a discussion in Washington as to the shape of Indian habitations 

 east of the Mississippi, says, that while certain of the disputants 

 " agreed that the Plains Indians of the present or modern times used 

 wigwams made with poles fastened together at the top and spreading 

 out in a circle at the bottom after the fashion of a Sibley tent, they 

 s edited by Henry C. Mercer, University of Penna , Phila. 



