KŌBE, April, 1895.
DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--"The law of heredity is unlimited in its application"
(Spencer, "Biology," vol. I, chapter "Heredity"). "Some naturalists
seem to entertain a vague belief [like yours?] that the law of heredity
applies only to main characters of structure, and not to details; or
that though it applies to such details as constitute differences of
species, it does not apply to smaller details. The circumstance that the
tendency to repetition is in a slight degree qualified by the tendency
to variation (which ... is but an indirect result of the tendency
to repetition) leads some to doubt whether heredity is unlimited. A
careful weighing of the evidence ... will remove the ground for this
skepticism." ("Biology," vol. I, p. 239.)
Your statement that the "weak person will always remain weak," but that
"the manifestations of his weakness will surely depend on the nature of
the obstacles in his way," is a proof that you do not perceive the full
reach of the explanation. The manifestations of weakness may be evoked
by obstacles, but the nature of those manifestations cannot possibly
have anything in common with the nature of the obstacles. The weakness
being hereditary, the nature of the obstacle cannot change it.
The case of the Northern nations seems to me direct proof of the
contrary to what you suggest. Olaf Trygvesson and others never really
changed the national religion, except in name,--no such rapid change
would have been possible. The worship of Odin and Thor continued under
the name of Christ and the Saints,--and still continues to some extent
to influence English life. The shaking-off of ecclesiastical power at a
later day,--the protestantizing of the Northern races,--is certainly the
manifestation in history of the same fierce love of freedom that founded
the Icelandic Republic. So with English limitation of monarchical power,
the history of the constitution, etc. So with the superiority of English
and Norse seamanship to-day,--Vikings still command our fleet. The
changes you cite as evidence of the non-influence of heredity really
prove it: they are, moreover, mere surface-shiftings of colour, and do
not reach down into the national life. Variations are the result of
heredity, not the exceptions to it. The explanation of this fact would
necessitate, however, a long discussion on the deepening or weakening
of those channels of nerve-force which are the river-courses of life
and thought. Similarly, growth--of brain and thought as well as of
body--is the consequence, not the contradiction, of inheritance. So with
instinct,--which is organized memory,--and with genius, which represents
accumulations of capacity (often at the expense of other growths).
I fear you think of Galton only when you limit the word heredity.
Universal life and growth is touched by the larger meaning: Galton's
wonderful books represent merely a domestic paragraph of the subject.
The underlying principles of evolution--the deep laws of physiological
growth and development--involve far vaster and profounder consideration
of the subject. Inheritance is no "fad:" it means you and me and the
world and our central sun.
My text was plain,--but you have forgotten it. I spoke of "ancestral
pleasure," "hereditary delight." You deny their possibility. The toys
are not ancestral, of course, nor did I say they were,--but they
appealed to ancestral feeling. Why? All pleasure is hereditary--every
feeling is inherited. Why, then, say so? Because in this case we are
considering race-feelings widely differentiated from our own.
But all this is surface,--the ghostly side of the question is the
beautiful one, and one which you would not deny without examining
the evidence? Perhaps you think that the first time you saw Fuji or
Miyanoshita, you had really a new sensation. But you had nothing of
the kind. The sensations of that new experience in your own life
were millions of years old! Far from simple is the commonest of our
pleasures, but a layer, infinitely multiple, of myriads of millions
of ancestral impressions. Try to analyze the sensation of pleasure in
a sunrise, or the smell of hay, and how soon we are lost. We can only
classify the elements of such a pleasure "by bundles," so to speak.
It might at first sight shock a strong soul to perceive itself not
individual and original, but an infinite compound. But I think one's
pride in one's good should subsequently expand. The thought that one's
strength is the strength of one's ancestors--of a host innumerable and
ancient as the race--has its larger consolation. And here is the poetry
of the thing. You are my friend B. H. C. But you are much more--you are
also Captain B. H., and a host of others--doubtless Viking and Norman
and Danish--a procession reaching back into the weird twilight of the
Northern gods.
So much for the fun of our discussion. I won't send the long screed:
it is too full of dry stuff, and on reading it over I find that my
enthusiasm betrayed me into several wild misstatements.
I am sorry about your cold, and I can sympathize; for I also have been
ill, and my boy, and I find spring very trying. I am all right to-day,
and so are we all.
Wish I were nineteen years old, and, like Ben, going to sea. As a boy, I
cried and made a great fuss because they told me, "You can't go to sea:
you are too near-sighted." Perhaps I was saved from disillusions.
You know Frederick Soulié's "Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait."
There was an unconscious recognition of heredity,--before modern biology
had been synthetized.
Ever with best wishes and regards,
LAFCADIO HEARN.