[470] Mr. Sproat (‘Scenes and Studies of Savage Life,’ 1868, p. 25) suggests, with reference to the beardless natives of Vancouver’s Island, that the custom of plucking out the hairs on the face, “continued from one generation to another, would perhaps at last produce a race distinguishable by a thin and straggling growth of beard.” But the custom would not have arisen until the beard had already become, from some independent cause, greatly reduced. Nor have we any direct evidence that the continued eradication of the hair would lead to any inherited effect. Owing to this cause of doubt, I have not hitherto alluded to the belief held by some distinguished ethnologists, for instance M. Gosse of Geneva, that artificial modifications of the skull tend to be inherited. I have no wish to dispute this conclusion; and we now know from Dr. Brown-Séquard’s remarkable observations, especially those recently communicated (1870) to the British Association, that with guinea-pigs the effects of operations are inherited.

[471] ‘Ueber die Richtung,’ ibid. s. 40.

[472] On the “Limits of Natural Selection,” in the ‘North American Review,’ Oct. 1870, p. 295.

[473] The Rev. J. A. Picton gives a discussion to this effect in his ‘New Theories and the Old Faith,’ 1870.

INDEX.

THE END.


LONDON: