I have quoted direct evidence adduced by competent observers,
which is, I believe, sufficient to establish the fact that offspring
can be and is sometimes modified by the acquired habits of a
progenitor. I will now proceed to the still more, as it appears to
me, cogent proof afforded by general considerations.
What, let me ask, are the principal phenomena of heredity? There
must be physical continuity between parent, or parents, and
offspring, so that the offspring is, as Erasmus Darwin well said, a
kind of elongation of the life of the parent.
Erasmus Darwin put the matter so well that I may as well give his
words in full; he wrote:--
"Owing to the imperfection of language the offspring is termed a new
animal, but is in truth a branch or elongation of the parent, since
a part of the embryon animal is, or was, a part of the parent, and
therefore, in strict language, cannot be said to be entirely new at
the time of its production; and therefore it may retain some of the
habits of the parent system.
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