“Even supposing that we were all identical at birth, yet, since we would come to differ from one another in virtue of different acquirements, due to our adaptation to differing environments, natural selection would ultimately have different individuals from which to select. Those who had made the most advantageous acquirements, such as industry or great knowledge, would tend to survive and prosper, whilst those who had made disadvantageous acquirements, such as laziness or the loss of sight or limbs, would be pushed to the wall. That process, of course, occurs in society at the present day to a greater or less degree, but it has only immediate and temporary or contemporary consequences. For if we recall the assertion that acquirements cannot be transmitted, we shall see that the selection of those who have made advantageous acquirements cannot benefit the next generation, since these acquirements die with their makers. The only process of natural selection which can result in progress is one which consists in the selection of favourable ... inborn and therefore transmissible characters, such as good digestion, the musical sense, exceptional intelligence, the sympathetic temperament or what not (in so far as these are inborn)--the reason being that such are transmissible and that the children of persons so selected will tend to inherit their parents' good fortune. There is a fictitious way in which we speak of a child inheriting his father's acquirements, as when his father has acquired a fortune; but the child does much better to inherit his father's good sense or good health, which were characters inborn in him. Acquirements, then, are all very well for the day, but it is inborn characters that alone count for the morrow.”[26]