110 president's address SECTION D. 



"by means which limit its range in time and sjjace and the dis- 

 persive mode of reproduction which as a rule provides for the 

 extension of the organism both in time and space, by storing up in 

 a more or less enduring form, as spores, seeds, or eggs, the capacity 

 for future development without necessarj' dependence on the 

 integrity of the parental life— there are several gradations of 

 method, but at no point do we find the thread of life — continuity 

 between parent and embryo — snapped apart. Whether scattered 

 through the body or located in a special organ, the cell of proto- 

 plasm prepared for the reproduction of the whole series of vital 

 phenomena manifested by the congeries of cells around it has at 

 least as great a share in the process of preparation, and therefore 

 as great a share in the common life, as each one of them, and that 

 life, unless prematurely destroyed, never ceases till it has accom- 

 plished its cycle of development, for organised as protoplasm is now- 

 known to be its further organisation proceeds without a break to 

 maturity. As far then as parent and oft'spring are concerned, it 

 may be held indubitable that they have the selfsame life con- 

 seciitively embodied. 



Here I am tempted to pause and ask my fellow biologists and 

 myself whether this truth, to them so unnecessarily spoken, does 

 not impose a duty upon us as citizens of our respective States, as 

 sharers in that commonwealth of humanity in which, however 

 absorbing our special pursuits, we must feel a personal interest. 

 Life as we know it, not only in its ordinary functions, but in its 

 idiosyncracies, and in their necessary influence on things external, 

 is transmitted imbroken from parent to child. Intellect or idiocy, 

 physical vigor or decrepitude, virtue or vice, are conferred or 

 inflicted on the issue of the body. It is a very solemn thought. 

 Truly it is a matter for anxious inquisition and resolute action on 

 the part of those whom we appoint conservators of our health, our 

 morals, our education, and our property. Remedies for inherited 

 evils are as plentiful as they are ineffectual ; every man has his 

 specific — for the encouragement of the good that is born with us 

 we have our schoolmasters and our divines — but, whether to 

 implant or displant, we want to grip the tap-root of the matter. 

 The savage, well aware that the existence of his tribe depends on 

 its freedom from useless and noxious members, its vigor on the 

 renunciation of close marriage and the restriction of marriage to 

 the full}' matured, and among them to the stoutest, bravest, and 

 ■wisest, and conscious that for his own welfare he should prefer the 

 life of the tribe to that of any injurious particle of it, obeys without 

 compunction the death-dealing decisions of tribal policy. The 

 storage of foods or its equivalents, the mainspring of civilisation, 

 relieves us from the necessity of ridding ourselves of the unpro- 

 ductive units of society ; so far we are privileged to indulge the 

 so-called humanitarian sentiment with safety — we may even go 

 further and tolerate the presence amongst us of the lets hurtful of 



