MAN FROM THE FARTHEST PAST 
What at first sight is even more extraordinary is that 
family resemblances, traits of character, even minute 
similarities in ways of acting, legion in their number, are 
clearly transmitted from parents to progeny through the 
channel of the microscopic germ-cells. One might well 
marvel that so small an organism could possibly carry the 
potential impression of so many and such complicated 
traits. To illustrate this point: A certain gentleman, when 
signing his name to the roll of members of the Handel and 
Haydn Society in Boston was accosted by the secretary 
with the remark, “I should have known to what family you 
belong had you written only the little letter 4.” Not only 
do deportment, degree of deliberation of movement, stat- 
ure, facial and bodily appearance, and quality of voice, but 
a host of other little peculiarities proving family connec- 
tion, thus pass from ancestor to descendant. 
On the other hand, no two human individuals are alike. 
In the act of fertilization many thousands of spermatozoa 
compete for the impregnation of a single ovum, of which 
but a single spermatozoon is successful. The preferment 
is in the highest degree accidental, and had any other of 
the many possible combinations occurred, the child would 
have differed from him who is born. Also the ova, 
though far less numerous than the spermatozoa, differ 
each from each and impart differences to their progeny. 
Hence by the marriage of two individuals arises almost 
countless possibilities of varied characters in their off- 
spring. The germ-cells, in short, carry not only the com- 
plex imprint of family inheritance, but also the imprint 
of individuality which stamps each child apart from all 
others who ever lived. Yet considering the race as a 
whole, every germ-cell is only one of an almost infinite 
number, each of which represents still other individuali- 
ties. Notwithstanding that its potential capacities are 
thus certainly so highly complex, the tiny organism 1s, 
as we have said, so small as to be beyond the unaided 
vision of the human eye. 
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