THE LA W OF LIKENESS, AND ITS 

 WORKING. 



THAT the offspring should bear a close resemblance to the 

 parent forms one of the most natural expectations of man- 

 kind, whilst the converse strikes us as being an infringement 

 of some universal law that is not the less recognisable 

 because of its unwritten or mysterious character. " The 

 acorn," says a great authority on matters physiological, 

 " tends to build itself up again into a woodland giant such 

 as that from whose twig it fell ; the spore of the humblest 

 lichen reproduces the green or brown incrustation which 

 gave it birth ; and at the other end of the scale of life, the 

 child that resembled neither the paternal nor the maternal 

 side of the house would be regarded as a kind of monster." 

 Thus true is it of the humblest as of the highest being, that 

 the law of likeness or " heredity," as it has been termed, 

 operates powerfully in moulding the young into the form 

 and resemblance of the parent. But the law that is thus 

 admitted to be so universal in its operation exhibits, at the 

 same time, very diverse readings and phases. The likeness 

 of the parent may be attained in some cases, it is true, in 

 the most direct manner, as, for example, in the higher 

 animals and plants, where the egg or germ, embryo and 

 seed, become transformed through a readily traced process 

 of development into the similitude of the being which gave 

 it birth. So accustomed are we to trace this direct resem- 

 blance between the parent and the young in the higher 

 animals and amongst ourselves, that any infringement of the 



