HEREDITARY INFLUENCE. 
541 
de la nature / 5 and thousands have firmly believed this ab- 
surdity. The very latest work published on this subject,* 
reproduces the dictum, and elaborately endeavours to demon- 
strate it. “Les especes sont les formes primitives de la 
nature. Les individus n’en sont que des representations, 
des copies . 55 This was very well for Plato ; but for a biologist 
of the nineteenth century to hold such language shows a want 
of philosophic culture. A cursory survey of the facts should 
have shown the error of the conception, if nothing else would. 
Facts plainly tell us that the individual and the individual’s 
peculiarities, not those of the abstract type, are transmitted. 
Plutarch speaks of a family in Thebes, every member of 
which was born with the mark of a spear-head on his body; 
and although Plutarch is not a good authority for such a 
fact, we may accept this because it belongs to a class of well- 
authenticated cases. An Italian family had the same sort of 
mark, and hence bore the name of Lansada. Haller cites the 
case of the Bentivoglie family, in whom a slight external 
tumour was transmitted from father to son, which always 
swelled when the atmosphere was moist. Again, the Roman 
families Nasones , and Buccones , indicate analogous peculiarities ; 
to which may be added the well-known “ Austrian lip ,’ 5 and 
“ Bourbon nose . 55 All the Barons de Vessins were said to 
have a peculiar mark between their shoulders ; and by means 
of such a mark La Tour Landry discovered the posthumous 
legitimate son of the Baron de Vessins in a London shoe- 
maker’s apprentice. Such cases might be received with an 
incredulous smile if they did not belong to a series of indis- 
putable facts noticed in the breeding of animals. Every 
breeder knows that the colours of the parents are inherited, 
that the spots are repeated, such as the patch over the bull- 
terrier’s eye, and the white legs of a horse or cow : and 
Chambonf lays it down, as a principle derived from experi- 
ence, that by choosing the parents you can produce any 
spots you please. Girou noticed that his Swiss cow, white, 
spotted with red, gave five calves, four of which repeated ex- 
actly the spots of their mother, the fifth, a cow-calf, resem- 
bling the bull. And do we not all know how successful our 
cattle breeders have been in directing the fat to those parts 
of the organism where gormandizers desire it? Have not 
sheep become moving cylinders of fat and wool, merely be- 
cause fat and wool were needed ? — Westminster Review. 
[To be continued .) 
* ‘Cours de Physiologie Comparee,’ par M. Elourens, 1856. A feeble 
and inaccurate book. 
t ‘ Traite de l’Education des Moutons,’ i, 116. 
