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.

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    PROMETHEUS than the parents ; certainly they will be diverse. And from the large population of commonplace types appear continually, as the generations pass, a few rare ones—for genius or for inferiority—then after a generation these drop back again into the great reservoir. So, though in lower organisms the valuable types may be directly saved and propagated, this cannot be done in man. The genes must continually change their combinations, now pro¬ ducing a superior individual, now a commonplace one, now an inferior one : Only while turns this wheel invisible No pause, no peace, no stopping place can be ; Who mounts will fall, who falls may mount— the spokes Go round unceasingly. So far as the genes go, reincarnation is a literal fact ; one gene in its time [86]