than it was possible for them to do under conditions afforded them while they remained parts of the body in which they were developed. Here I deem it in point to observe that the adoption in its extreme form of the theory of preformation versus epigenesis, or the assumption that no qualities due to the experiences of the soma can have any influence upon germ plasm or affect heredity, would be to revert to views very like those of the old creationists. From Weismann we may well lay to heart that this influence is very slow and slight in any one or even a large number of generations, suggesting a very long prehistory for the germ plasm of higher organisms. But to hold that nothing in the recent past or the near future of the environment within or without the individual can ever in the least affect innate qualities is to throw ourselves into the arms of a fatalism that more or less blights all the motives of reform and amelioration of conditions or of educational influences in their widest scope. On the contrary, we hold that the ultimate goal of all the improvements of life or mores is to better heredity, that most precious and ancient of all the many forms of values and worths, and that the degree in which they do this is the final criterion of all really worthy endeavor in the world. If the good life of a long series of generations of our ancestors does not in the least tend to make their offspring a little better born and give them some slightly better chance for a worthy, long, and happy life, quite apart from all postnatal, parental, and other influences, the taproot of all motivations for reforming human conditions is cut, and all efforts in this direction become a little falsetto and every generation must start again at the beginning.