COMPARATIVE INFLUENCE OF PAEENTS. 97 



of the one or the other ? The attempt to settle this question 

 has led to various speculations and discussions. It has been 

 maintained by some, that the male had most influence ; by 

 others that the female had ; by others still, that the framework 

 and external parts of the body were communicated by the 

 male, while the internal organs were transmitted by the 

 female. Some have attempted to prove that this transmission 

 took place by halves, and they have divided the body into two 

 distinct parts, mapping down this organ here, and that one 

 there. But amid all this diversity of opinions, and after pro- 

 tracted discussions, no one theory has prevailed, and no one 

 general principle has been established. While it is admitted 

 on all sides, that, as a general rule, the parent stock is more 

 or less represented in the ofispring, sometimes in a blending 

 and interfusion of the qualities of both, and again in a most 

 striking resemblance to the one or the other, that such is the 

 aggregate of these qualities of resemblance, as to cause a cer- 

 tain type of family likenesses and organic qualities to be 

 stamped upon great numbers through successive generations, 

 and that all these changes must take place under the direction 

 of some lixed laws ; is it not presumable, with these facts be- 

 fore us, that there may be founded somewhere in nature a 

 great primary law of propagation, of which all these Various 

 changes are but the result of fragmentary parts ? 



Suppose the principles of breeding advocated in this paper 

 had been 'admitted for the last fifty years as correct, and had 

 been generally understood, would not the great mass of facts 

 gathered, and the experiments tried, have been turned to 

 much better account than they have been ? Would not the 

 observations made in this most important field of inquiry, and 

 the discussions therein, have resulted in settled principles of 

 science? We must have something more than isolated facts, 

 anomalous cases, and the experiments- of individuals without 

 any guiding principle. In fact, speculations and discussions 

 have been carried on about as far as they can be towards set- 

 tling these questions, or for advancing anything like' science. 

 For the sake of making improvement there is need at the 

 present time, above all things, of introducing and establishing 

 some great general law or principle around which all facts, all 

 observations and all discussions will centre and crystallize. 



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