of the next, and the present social and educational systems are founded in large part on this false foundation. Most philanthropy starts out unquestioningly with the assumption that by modifying the individual for the better, it will thereby improve the germinal quality of the race. Even a self-styled eugenist asks, "Can prospective parents who have thoroughly and systematically disciplined themselves, physically, mentally and morally, transmit to their offspring the traits or tendencies which they have developed?" and answers the question with the astounding statement, "It seems reasonable to suppose that they have this power, it being simply a phase of heredity, the tendency of like to beget like."
The right understanding of this famous problem is therefore fraught with the most important consequences to eugenics. The huge mass of experimental evidence that has been accumulated during the last quarter of a century has, necessarily, been almost wholly based on work with plants and lower animals. Even though we can not attempt to present a general review of this evidence, for which the reader must consult one of the standard works on biology or genetics, we shall point out some of the considerations underlying the problem and its solution.
In the first place, it must be definitely understood that we are dealing only with specific, as distinguished from general, transmission. As the germ-cells derive their nourishment from the body, it is obvious that any cause profoundly affecting the latter might in that way exercise an influence on the germ-cells; that if the parent was starved, the germ-cells might be ill-nourished and the resulting offspring might be weak and puny. There is experimental evidence that this is the case; but that is not the inheritance of an acquired character. If, however, a white man tanned by long exposure to the tropical sun should have children who were brunettes, when the family stock was all blond; or if men whose legs were deformed through falls