is a possible indirect influence of modifications, which may have real importance in man. If the individual is modified in a certain way, in a number of generations, even though such a modification is not transmitted to his descendants, yet its continued existence may make possible, the survival of some germinal variation bearing in the same direction, which without the protecting influence of the pre-existing modification, would have been swamped or destroyed.
Finally, it should be borne in mind that even if physical and mental characters acquired during a man's lifetime are not transmitted, yet there is a sort of transmission of acquired characters which has been of