Acquired characters may thus be regarded as the results of those accidents, fortunate or the reverse as the case may be, which happen to the body, and more or less modify its outward form or hidden structure, and its modes of organic behaviour; but which, as such, have no direct effects for better or worse on the germinal substance. All that the plant or animal can be is due to heredity; all that it _is_, to heredity and circumstance. Even the ability to yield to circumstance is part of heredity’s dower. Fortunate, then, the plant or animal that inherits such definiteness of structure and behaviour as may fit it to its station, together with such plasticity as may enable it to accommodate itself to those changes of environing conditions which may fall to its lot. One more point must be noticed in connection with this difficult and puzzling subject. The acceptance of the conclusion that acquired modes of behaviour are not hereditary nowise commits us to the belief that heredity has nothing whatever to do with them. Though what is acquired may not be transmitted, what one may term the acquisitiveness is unquestionably inherited. Though this, that, or the other acquired mode of behaviour may have no direct descendants, the power of acquiring any one of them under the appropriate circumstances is handed on as an invaluable legacy. Just as the mirror which has reflected a fleeting scene retains no lasting image of the bygone events, so heredity may retain no impress of acquired characters; but just as the mirror keeps its power of reflecting such scenes, so does heredity transmit the power of acquiring such characters. As the leaves of the oak are renewed each successive spring, so may acquired modes of behaviour be repeated in each successive generation if only the requisite conditions recur in due season.