se that in a single
generation it has transmitted a newly-taught method of walking or
trotting?

It is alleged that dogs inherit the intelligence acquired by association
with man, and that retrievers inherit the effects of their
training.[40] But selection and imitation are so potent that the
additional hypothesis of use-inheritance seems perfectly superfluous.
Where intelligence is not highly valued and carefully promoted by
selection, the intelligence derivable from association with man does
_not_ appear to be inherited. Lap-dogs, for instance, are often
remarkably stupid.

Darwin also instances the inheritance of dexterity in seal-catching as a
case of use-inheritance.[41] But this is amply explained by the ordinary
law of heredity. All that is needed is that the son shall inherit the
suitable faculties which the father inherited before him.

TAMENESS OF RABBITS.

Darwin holds that in some cases selection alone has modified the
instincts and dispositions of domesticated animals, but that in most
cases selection and the inheritance of acquired habits have concurred in
effecting the change. "On the other hand," he says, "habit alone in some
cases has sufficed; hardly any animal is more difficult to tame than the
young of the wild rabbit; scarcely any animal is tamer than the young of
the tame rabbit; but I can hardly suppose that domestic rabbits have
often been selected for tameness alone; so that we must attribute at
least the greater part of the inherited change from extreme wildness to
extreme tameness to habit and long-continued close confinement."[42]

But there are strong, and to me irresistible, arguments to the contrary.
I think that the following considerations will show that the greater
part, if not the whole, of the change must be attributed to selection
rather than to the direct inheritance of acquired habit.

(1) For a period which may cover thousands of generations, there has
been an entire cessation of the natural selection which maintains the
wildness (or excessive fear, caution, activity, &c.) so indispensably
essential for preserving defenceless wild rabbits of all ages from the
many enemies that prey upon them.

(2) During this same extensive period of time man has usually killed off
the wildest and bred from the tamest and most manageable. To some extent
he has done this consciously. "It is very conducive to successful
breeding to keep only such as are quiet and tractable," says an
autho