164 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



cannot be alike in each, such is the complexity of environ- 

 ment, but which can approximate in likeness according as the 

 conditions of their evolution have been more similar. We 

 cannot expect that in the continual development of ova into 

 new beings — although the conditions of the environment of 

 the development brought about by fecundation may be very 

 similar — parallel results shall in any case be obtained. In the 

 case of brothers and sisters we usually see resemblance, never 

 exact likeness of form or character, — occasionally an unlike- 

 ness of form or character. In twins it is a matter of constant 

 observation that the resemblances are usually quite close. 



In the latter case, where the conditions of fecundation are 

 alike, and the development of the various germs which make 

 the new being are somewhat cotemporaneous in the time of 

 their development, and consequently exposed to a somewhat 

 similar environment, such differences as we observe between 

 the two offspring are to be largely explained by the difference 

 in the forces which were contained in the germs. 



The ovum, like the sperm, being a representative of a con- 

 crete force, which has been made up from the action and reac- 

 tion of all acts affecting past ancestors which have had any 

 effect on its development, it must follow, as a matter of course, 

 that any individual act affecting the development of these 

 cells, must likewise be represented in the modifications pro- 

 duced in the forces which, through the ovum, are transmitted. 



On this view we can explain the action of imagination, or 

 of a previous impregnation, upon the offspring. A long con- 

 tinued or a violent impression on the nervous system through 

 the changes following every act through which there is a con- 

 sumption of force, would necessarily modify, in some form, 

 the development of cells whose functions are peculiarly those 

 of transmissal. The fact that the development of the ovum 

 in woman is checked for a time, during the presence of the 

 child in the womb, and to a certain extent during lactation, 

 indicates the close relation between the germ expelled and in 

 process of development and the cells of the stroma of the 

 ovary. The sympathetic and nutritive relations are undoubt- 

 edly quite close, and the forces of the one are being modified 

 through the presence of the other. Such a change may, per- 

 haps, be recognized in the progeny, it depending on our 



