INFLUENCE OF MALE AND FEMALE PARENT 129 



of plants. He observed that foreign pollen not only- 

 affected, in accordance with its proper function, the 

 germ, but also the tissues of the mother plant, and 

 that by tliis means crossing had an effect upon the 

 subsequent generation. "The analogy from the 

 action of foreign pollen upon various parts of the 

 mother plant," Darwin remarks, " strongly supports 

 the belief that with animals the male element acts 

 directly upon the female, and not through the crossed 

 embryo." ^ A wife becomes inoculated, so to speak, 

 with her husband's qualities. Apart from Darwin's 

 hypothesis, it is reasonable to suppose that the circu- 

 lation of the mother's blood through the foetus should, 

 in process of time, affect the mother's physique. We 

 need no longer be astonished at the fact, therefore, 

 that a child born of adulterous intercourse may re- 

 semble its legal as well as its actual father. 



^ Darwin's Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication. 



K 



