A few illustrations will be in place. Acquired characters are any acquisitions made by the body-cells during the lifetime of an individual. They may be obvious, as skill in piano-playing, bicycle-riding, etc.; or they may be very recondite, as turns of the intellect, acquired beliefs, etc. Acquired bodily characters may be forcibly impressed upon the organism, as the facial mutilations practiced by certain savage tribes, the docking of the tails of horses, of dogs, etc. The question is, Are any acquired characters, physical or mental, transmitted by inheritance? Manifestly, it will be difficult to determine on a scientific basis whether or not such qualities are inheritable. One would naturally think first of applying the test of experiment to supposed cases of such inheritances, and this is the best ground to proceed on. It has been maintained on the basis of the classical experiments of Brown-Séquard on guinea-pigs that induced epilepsy is transmitted to offspring; and, also, on the basis of general observations, that certain bodily mutilations are inherited. Weismann's analysis of the whole situation is very incisive. He experimented by cutting off the tails of both parents of breeding mice. The experiments were carried through twenty-two generations, both parents being deprived of their tails, without yielding any evidence that the mutilations were inheritable. To take one other case that is less superficial, it is generally believed that the thirst for alcoholic liquors has been transmitted to the children of drunkards, and while Weismann admits the possibility of this, he maintains that it is owing to the germinal elements being exposed to the influence of the alcohol circulating in the blood of the parent or parents; and if this be the case it would not be the inheritance of an acquired character, but the response of the organism to a drug producing directly a variation in the germ-plasm. Notwithstanding the well-defined opposition of Weismann, the inheritance of acquired characters is still a mooted question. Herbert Spencer argued in favor of it, and during his lifetime had many a pointed controversy with Weismann. Eimer stands unalterably against Weismann's position, and the Neo-Lamarckians stand for the direct inheritance of useful variations in bodily structure. The question is still undetermined and is open to experimental observation. In its present state there are competent observers maintaining both sides, but it must be confessed that there is not a single case in which the supposed inheritance of an acquired character has stood the test of critical examination.