The Inheritance of Mental Characters

Abstract

I THINK Dr. Walker is scarcely clear as to the situation. A personal acquaintance with a writer is not necessary when we judge his published opinions. By “character” biologists mean any trait of a living being—a head, a hair, a characteristic of a hair, a characteristic of that characteristic, and so on. Of course, no character of any sort—neither a head nor a scar, for example—can develop in the individual unless the potentiality to develop it under fit conditions is antecedently present. If, then, we think in terms of germinal potentiality, all characters, for example heads and scars, are equally inheritable. But biologists commonly apply the term “acquired” to actual somatic characters which have developed under the influence of use or injury, the term “inborn” to characters which developed in the absence of these influences, and the term “inheritable” to characters which were present in the parent and tend to be “inborn” in the offspring. Thus they speak of heads as inborn and inheritable, and of use-callosities and scars as acquired and non-inheritable. I am dot concerned here with the correctness of these terms. My statement of the manner in which they are used is correct.