eans, the same thing to have
searched the forests and to have recognised the frontiers. Indeed, the
two things generally belong to two very different types of mind. I
gravely doubt whether the Astronomer-Royal would write the best essay
on the relations between astronomy and astrology. I doubt whether the
President of the Geographical Society could give the best definition
and history of the words "geography" and "geology."

Now the students of heredity, especially, understand all of their
subject except their subject. They were, I suppose, bred and born in
that brier-patch, and have really explored it without coming to the
end of it. That is, they have studied everything but the question of
what they are studying. Now I do not propose to rely merely on myself
to tell them what they are studying. I propose, as will be seen in a
moment, to call the testimony of a great man who has himself studied
it. But to begin with, the domain of heredity (for those who see its
frontiers) is a sort of triangle, enclosed on its three sides by three
facts. The first is that heredity undoubtedly exists, or there would
be no such thing as a family likeness, and every marriage might
suddenly produce a small negro. The second is that even simple
heredity can never be simple; its complexity must be literally
unfathomable, for in that field fight unthinkable millions. But yet
again it never is simple heredity: for the instant anyone is, he
experiences. The third is that these innumerable ancient influences,
these instant inundations of experiences, come together according to a
combination that is unlike anything else on this earth. It is a
combination that does combine. It cannot be sorted out again, even on
the Day of Judgment. Two totally different people have become in the
sense most sacred, frightful, and unanswerable, one flesh. If a
golden-haired Scandinavian girl has married a very swarthy Jew, the
Scandinavian side of the family may say till they are blue in the face
that the baby has his mother's nose or his mother's eyes. They can
never be certain the black-haired Bedouin is not present in every
feature, in every inch. In the person of the baby he may have gently
pulled his wife's nose. In the person of the baby he may have partly
blacked his wife's eyes.

Those are the three first facts of heredity. That it exists; that it
is subtle and made of a million elements; that it is simple, and
cannot be unmade into those elements. To su