tends to be inherited, at least in
a temporary and sometimes in a most persistent manner. What can be more
wonderful than that some trifling peculiarity, not primordially attached to
the species, should be transmitted through the male or female sexual cells,
which are so minute as not to be visible to the naked eye, and afterwards
through the incessant changes of a long course of development, undergone
either in the womb or in the egg, and ultimately appear in the offspring
when mature, or even when quite old, as in the case of certain diseases? Or
again, what can be more wonderful than the well-ascertained fact that the
minute ovule of a good milking cow will produce a male, from whom a cell,
in union with an ovule, will produce a female, and she, when mature, will
have large mammary glands, yielding an abundant supply of milk, and even
milk of a particular quality? Nevertheless, the real subject of surprise
is, as Sir H. Holland has well remarked,[1] not that a character should be
inherited, but that any should ever fail to be inherited. In a future
chapter, devoted to an hypothesis which I have termed pangenesis, an
attempt will be made to show the means by which characters of all kinds are
transmitted from generation to generation.

{3}

Some writers,[2] who have not attended to natural history, have attempted
to show that the force of inheritance has been much exaggerated. The
breeders of animals would smile at such simplicity; and if they
condescended to make any answer, might ask what would be the chance of
winning a prize if two inferior animals were paired together? They might
ask whether the half-wild Arabs were led by theoretical notions to keep
pedigrees of their horses? Why have pedigrees been scrupulously kept and
published of the Shorthorn cattle, and more recently of the Hereford breed?
Is it an illusion that these recently improved animals safely transmit
their excellent qualities even when crossed with other breeds? have the
Shorthorns, without good reason, been purchased at immense prices and
exported to almost every quarter of the globe, a thousand guineas having
been given for a bull? With greyhounds pedigrees have likewise been kept,
and the names of such dogs, as Snowball, Major, &c., are as well known to
coursers as those of Eclipse and Herod on the turf. Even with the Gamecock
pedigrees of famous strains were formerly kept, and extended back for a
century. With pigs, the Yorkshire and Cumberlan