474 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



a most beneficent result of the study of natural history and physics. 

 It is an achievement which has had much to do with the modern in- 

 crease of liberty in human society, liberty individual, political and 

 religious ; it is an achievement of the highest promise for the future 

 of the race. 



The second result which I wish to specify is the stupendous doc- 

 trine of hereditary transmission, which during the past thirty years, 

 or within the lifetime of most of those who hear me, natural science 

 has developed and enforced by observations and comparisons covering 

 the whole field of organized life. This conception is far from being a 

 new one. Our race has long practised, though fitfully and empirically, 

 upon some crude and fragmentary forms of this idea. Tribes, clans, 

 castes, orders of nobilitv, and reigning families, are familiar illustra- 

 tions of the sway of this idea; in killing, banishing, and confining 

 criminals mankind has in all ages been defending itself, blindly, to be 

 sure, but effectually, against evils which incidentally flow from heredi- 

 tary transmission ; but it has been reserved for natural science in this 

 generation to demonstrate the universality of this principle, and its 

 controlling influence upon the families, nations, and races of men, as 

 well as upon all lower orders of animate beings. It is fitting that 

 natural history should have given this demonstration to the world; 

 for the basis of systematic natural history is the idea of species, and 

 the idea of species is itself founded upon the sureness of hereditary 

 transmission, upon the ultimate fact that individual characteristics are 

 hereditable. As the knowledge of heredity, recently acquired by sci- 

 ence, permeates society, it will profoundly aflect social customs, pub- 

 lic legislation, and governmental action. It will throw additional 

 safeguards around the domestic relations; enhance the natural inter- 

 est in vigorous family stocks ; guide wisely the charitable action of 

 the community ; give a rational basis for penal legislation ; and pro- 

 mote both the occasional production of illustrious men and the gradual 

 improvement of the masses of mankind. These moral benefits will 

 surely flow from our generation's study of heredity. 



Finally, modern science has discovered and set forth the magnifi- 

 cent idea of the continuity of creation. It has proved that the devel- 

 opment of the universe has been a progress from good to better, a 

 progress not without reactions and catastrophes, but still a benign 

 advance toward ever higher forms of life, with ever greater capacities 

 for ever finer enjoyments. It has laid a firm foundation for man's in- 

 stinctive faitb in his own future. From the sight and touch of what 

 the eternal past has wrought, it deduces a sure trust in what the eter- 

 nal future has in store. 



" And present gratitude 

 Insures the future's good ; 

 And for the things I see 

 I trust the things to he." 



