99 



perties are those which are conferred by a function of the generative 

 organs in the two sexes; that in the fecundated ovum the proper- 

 ties of the two sexes, which have a general resemblance to their 

 originals, are mixed. The question then arises, by what mode of 

 causation do parts and properties perfectly resemble those either of 

 the father or of the mother, exclusively; when parts and pro- 

 pensities, the first subservient to a similar function, and the second 

 operating with an opposite tendency, are proper to both? Thus, if 

 the maternal ovum is a resemblance in pre-disposition to the mother, 

 it must have, according to our notions, similar sexual organs. The 

 same is to be said of the cause of fecundation. Thus, also, the 

 father's hair may be black and the mother's white ; and the offspring, 

 though possessing the radicles of both these peculiarites, shall per- 

 haps manifest only one of them, and that unmodified; shall be 

 either perfect male or perfect female; or shall have hair either 

 black or white, and not of a mixed colour. 



105. This apparent difficulty is to be solved only by the rela- 

 tions of properties expressed at 15; a complicated process of 

 causation takes place between the spirit of the maternal ovum and 

 that of the cause of fecundation; some properties unite and modify 

 each other, and their modification is subsequently denoted by a cor- 

 responding state of the textures; others (the third class at 15) 

 preserve unchanged their own natures. If we ask how these things 

 are settled ? it must be replied, we only define a relation subsisting 

 between existences, and we may reduce this example to the level of 

 common examples, and say that the relation here is determined in 

 the same way as that by which an acid and an alkali will unite and 

 form a neutral salt, or as oil and water will not unite; existence 

 forcing existence, c. But to consider more particularly our 

 present example. 



106. It is first to be shewn that the principle, viz. the posses- 

 sion by the seminal radicles (c&teris paribus) of all the properties 

 of the originals is not invalidated by the facts, which is indicated 

 with some force by the following circumstances: 1st, A woman, the 

 offspring of one of an hemorrhagic idiosyncracy, shall attain old age 

 without the slightest apparent tendency to hemorrhage, while in her 

 children, or in some of them, and not in others, the hemorrhagic 

 idiosyncracy shall be so prevailing that profuse bleedings will occur 

 on the slightest occasions, and sometimes without any assignable 

 cause. The next generation of those who bleed shall manifest no 

 such disposition, while the children of those who did not bleed 

 shall preserve the strength of the tendency in the originals, and even 

 transmit it with many irregularities to posterity. 2nd, The same is 

 to be said of scrophula, of consumption, and of most or all here- 

 ditary diseases. 3rd, The same is to be said of the colour of the 

 hair, the development of the textures, the formation or absence of 

 fat, the peculiarities of features, of the peculiarities of the moral 

 character, of the peculiar strength of certain persons, of insanity, 

 &c. In all instances spiritual properties are conferred on the 



