d their
consequences, pleasurable or painful, may, in the successions of
individuals, generate innate tendencies to like or dislike such actions.
But if not, the genesis of such tendencies is, as we shall see, not
satisfactorily explicable.

That our sociological beliefs must also be profoundly affected by the
conclusions we draw on this point, is obvious. If a nation is modified
_en masse_ by transmission of the effects produced on the natures of its
members by those modes of daily activity which its institutions and
circumstances involve; then we must infer that such institutions and
circumstances mould its members far more rapidly and comprehensively
than they can do if the solo cause of adaptation to them is the more
frequent survival of individuals who happen to have varied in
favourable ways.

I will add only that, considering the width and depth of the effects
which acceptance of one or other of these hypotheses must have on our
views of Life, Mind, Morals, and Politics, the question--Which of them
is true? demands, beyond all other questions whatever, the attention of
scientific men.

* * * * *

After the above articles were published, I received from Dr. Downes a
copy of a paper "On the Influence of Light on Protoplasm," written by
himself and Mr. T.P. Blunt, M.A., which was communicated to the Royal
Society in 1878. It was a continuation of a preceding paper which,
referring chiefly to _Bacteria_, contended that--

"Light is inimical to, and under favourable conditions may wholly
prevent, the development of these organisms."

This supplementary paper goes on to show that the injurious effect of
light upon protoplasm results only in presence of oxygen. Taking first a
comparatively simple type of molecule which enters into the composition
of organic matter, the authors say, after detailing experiments:--

"It was evident, therefore, that _oxygen_ was the agent of
destruction under the influence of sunlight."

And accounts of experiments upon minute organisms are followed by the
sentence--

"It seemed, therefore, that in absence of an atmosphere, light
failed entirely to produce any effect on such organisms as were
able to appear."

They sum up the results of their experiments in the paragraph--

"We conclude, therefore, both from analogy and from direct
experiment, that the observed action on these organisms is not
de