A CHAPTER FOR WIVES AND MOTHERS 491 



Pigeon fanciers sliow wonderful skill in thus producing 

 most curious modifications in birds. The laws of 

 heredity and development are carefully studied and 

 applied in the production of superior horses, cows, 

 dogs, and pigeons ; but an application of the same prin- 

 cjples to the improvement of the human race is rarely 

 thought of. Human beings are generated in as hap- 

 hazard and reckless a manner as weeds are sown by 

 the wind. No account is taken of the possible influence 

 which may be exerted upon the future destiny of the 

 new being ])y the physical or mental condition of par- 

 ents at the moment when the germ of life is planted, 

 or by the mental and physical conditi ons and surround- 

 ings of the mother while the young life is developing. 

 Indeed, the assertion of a modern writer that the poor 

 of our great cities virtually "spawn" children, with as 

 little thought of influences and consequences as the fish 

 that sow their eggs broadcast upon the waters, is not 

 so great an exaggeration as it might at first sight ap- 

 pear to be. 



Law Universal.— Men and women are constantly 

 prone to forget that the domain of law is universal. 

 Nothing comes by chance. The revolutions of the plan- 

 ets, studied by the aid of the telescope; and the gyra- 

 tions of the atoms, seen only by the eye of science, 

 are alike examples of the controlling influence of law. 

 Notwithstanding this sad ignorance and the disregard 

 of this vitally important subject, the effects of law are 

 only too clearly manifested in the crowds of wretched 

 human beings with which the world is thronged. An 

 old writer sagely remarks, '^It is the greatest part of 

 human felicity to be well born ; ' ' nevertheless, it is the 

 sad misfortune of by far the greater portion of human- 

 ity to be deprived of this inestimable ''felicity." 



