Prometheus, or, biology and the advancement of man / by H.S. Jennings.

  • Herbert Spencer Jennings
Date:
[1925]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Credit: Prometheus, or, biology and the advancement of man / by H.S. Jennings. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    64/112 (page 60)
    PROMETHEUS characteristics in the same sense as are colour of eyes and form of head. Under the same education they would differ in individuak of diverse stock ; and in crossing they would foUow Mendelian rules, as do physical characters.* Every creature has many inheritances ; which one shall be reaUzed depending on the conditions under which it develops ; but man is the creature that has the greatest number of possible heritages. Or, more accurately, men and other organisms do not inherit their character¬ istics at all. What their parents leave them are certain packets of chemicals which under one set of conditions pro¬ duce one set of characters, under other * Obviously, nothing in the text relates to the effect of education on the descendants of the educated person ; that is, to the inheritance of acquired characters/* The propositions set forth are equally valid whether there is or is not such effect on the descendants. [62]