HOW THE TROTTING HORSE IS BRED. 471 



ago, or more, a friend of mine married a lady who was a brunette 

 in complexion, with black eyes and black hair. He was of florid 

 complexion, with bine eyes and sandy hair, just about the color 

 of my own. After three or four years the husband died leaving 

 two children of his own complexion and color of eyes and hair. 

 In course of time the widow married a man with black hair and 

 black eyes, and there came a second set of children that were as 

 perfect reproductions of the first husband as his own children 

 were in complexion and color of hair." 



"How long have you. personally known this family, and have 

 you ever seen these two sets of children?" 



" I have known the family intimately ever since the first mar- 

 riage and I have seen both sets of children very often." 



"You certainly have had abundant opportunity to know 

 whereof you affirm, and the facts seem so plain that it would be a 

 refinement on folly to undertake to contradict them; but there 

 is one element in this case that has not been explained, and it is 

 .a vital one. How are we to know whether some man of 'sandy 

 complexion' and with 'hair and eyes just the color of yours,' is 

 not the father of this second set of children?" 



This ended th^ colloquy in a "roof-raising" shout, and I never 

 have been called upon since, in a public meeting, to even allude 

 to the "heredity of influence." With the experiences of thou- 

 sands of years of miscegnatious breeding between the ass and the 

 mare and no indication among the writers of the ancients as to 

 the evil and abiding effects of first impregnations; and with the 

 experiences of more than a century in this country, with the 

 same results, we are compelled to throw over all claims of this 

 kind until furnished with full and complete pedigrees of the sire 

 and dam, showing the color and markings of each individual for 

 a number of generations. 



HEREDITY OF ACQUIRED CHARACTERS AND INSTINCTS. On 

 this point there is a lack of unanimity among the promoters of 

 the "primordial germ" theory, and the principal advocate of the 

 negative side of this question appears to be Professor Weismann. 

 Mere opinions of men, no difference how profound their learning, 

 cannot be of any value, unless they are sustained by actual ex- 

 periences, on questions of this kind. To determine this matter 

 we are not dependent upon any of the explanations of the cen- 

 tral Darwinian hypothesis of creation without a Creator, for we 

 have all around us, safely within the historic period of human 



