INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY 107 



choke down some harsh word which we are about 

 to utter. 



The combined impressions of a thousand ex- 

 periences with other human beings seem to blend 

 together to help us form our judgment of a 

 single human being with whom we are about to 

 deal. 



As the weeks have rolled into months, and as 

 the months have melted into years, new impres- 

 sions have arisen to crowd out the old; strong 

 impressions have supplanted the weak, bigger 

 impressions have taken the place of the lesser 

 ones but the old impressions are always there 

 always blending themselves into our judg- 

 ments, our ambitions, our desires, our ideals 

 always ready and waiting, apparently, to single 

 themselves out and appear before us brilliantly 

 whenever the proper combination of conditions 

 arises. 



So, too, with the seed. 



Every drought that has caused hardship to 

 its ancestors is recorded as a tendency in 

 that seed. 



Every favoring condition which has brought a 

 forbear to greater productiveness is there as a 

 tendency in that seed. 



Every frost, every rain, every rise of the morn- 

 ing sun has left its imprint in the line of ancestry 



