HUMAN HEREDITY. 365 



same process continued through the successive generations of the 

 human family. The distinctively human qualities acquired at the 

 outset, together with the accumulation of inherited animal quali- 

 ties, were handed down to the races that succeeded. They, in 

 turn, "bestowed all that had been bequeathed to them, together 

 with their newly acquired race characteristics, to their descend- 

 ants. Finally, the national characteristics, which in our time we 

 may suppose to include all the traits that characterize civilized 

 man, were differentiated. 



Civilized man, therefore, inherits the accumulation of benefits 

 that have come from the operation of the law of heredity through 

 the long ages since life began upon the earth. In a deeper sense 

 than we commonly think, we are the heirs of all the ages. 



Man does not come into his full inheritance at the beginning 

 of his existence. It is a fact of exceeding significance that, at the 

 beginning of embryonic life, our bodies consist of nothing more 

 than a single cell, precisely similar to the minute organisms with 

 which life began upon the earth. It is as if man acknowledged 

 the debt which he owes to these primordial living beings. But it 

 is not only to the primal form of life that he makes this confession 

 of affinity; for, as is well known, the successive stages of em- 

 bryonic development represent the succession of type forms of 

 animal life as they appeared upon the earth. Thus, man comes 

 into his inheritance by degrees. At the beginning of his existence 

 he possesses the characters of the primal forms of life ; a little 

 later, those of the second life-period — such as belong to the lower 

 animals ; still later, those of the third life-period — such as belong 

 to the higher grade of animals. At a considerable time before 

 birth he has already come into possession of all the animal quali- 

 ties, and at birth the human physical characters are present. 

 Then follows a more perfect development of the physical char- 

 acters, and at the same time the acquirement of the higher human 

 characteristics — the power of speech and the mental and moral 

 faculties. Thus, in the unfolding embryo and in the growing child 

 we have recorded in dim but unmistakable characters the history 

 of the life of the earth. 



A suggestion, looking to the future, here presents itself. 

 The same agencies out of which has come the progress of the past 

 are in operation now. It is, therefore, only in the course of nature 

 that there should be a further progress. And as respects man, 

 according to a law that has governed in the past, namely, that the 

 most recently acquired characters of a type are most subject to 

 progressive change, we may expect that advancement will be 

 chiefly in respect to his higher powers — his intellectual, moral, 

 and spiritual nature. 



