14   NATURAL INHERITANCE.   [CUUAP.

chances of holding its own in the struggle for existence, and of establishing itself if its qualities were superior to those of the black stock under any one of many different conditions.

Inahaeritance of Acquired Faculties.-I am unpre

pared to say more than a few words on the obscure, unsettled, and much discussed subject of the possibility of transmitting acquired faculties. The main evidence in its favour is the gradual change of the instincts of races at large, in conformity with changed habits, and through their increased adaptation to their surroundings, otherwise apparently than through the influence of Natural Selection. There is very little direct evidence of its influence in the course of a single generation, if the phrase of Acquired Faculties is used in perfect strictness and all inheritance is excluded that could be referred to some form of Natural Selection, or of Infection before birth, or of peculiarities of Nurture and Rearing. Moreover, a large deduction from the collection of rare cases must be made on the ground of their being accidental coincidences. When this is done, the remaining instances of acquired disease or faculty, or of any mutilation being transmitted from parent to child, are very few. Some apparent evidence of a positive kind, that was formerly relied upon, has been since found capable of being interpreted in another way, and is no longer adduced. On the other hand there exists such a vast mass of distinctly negative evidence, that every instance offered to prove the transmission