A CUMULATIVE POWER. 187 



is a recognition of the mutual dependence of all structures 

 upon simple, harmonious law. 



Prepotency. — As all causes are followed by effects, we must 

 believe that forces which have long acted, or have been accu- 

 mulated in one direction, have done so to the exclusion of 

 other forces which might have acted in their place, and hence 

 must be supposed to have had a stronger influence than if 

 they had acted through a less period of time, for continued 

 effects must have followed their continued presence in an 

 unstable equilibrium, like vitality. Hence, the term pre- 

 potency expresses the fact that a force, through long continu- 

 ance or otherwise, has, through its own strength, acquired a 

 preponderating influence over other forces. We thus have 

 prepotency of breed, — as illustrated by the case given by 

 Gocline, where a ram of a goat-like breed, from the Cape of 

 Good Hope, produced offspring hardly distinguishable from 

 himself when crossed w T ith ewes of twelve other breeds ; 

 prepotency of sex, — as illustrated by the Shorthorn bull 

 "Favorite," referred to so often in Shorthorn pedigrees. 

 When, from any cause whatsoever, a force acts in a manner 

 stronger than another force, it is prepotent. If forces have 

 been accumulated through selection, or through breeding in 

 any one direction, we have a prepotency of such forces over 

 other forces which are unable to resist, — each force standing 

 on its own strength, however it may have been accumulated. 

 Pedigree, or the breeding in line, has a tendency to strengthen 

 the points of value: so also has purity of race; so also has 

 selection ; so also has the accumulative action of changed 

 conditions of life. Prepotency is, therefore, but a term 

 expressive of a fact, that of a number of forces fouud amid 

 many diverse conditions, — as in the maintenance of an equilib- 

 rium with changing conditions, — some are stronger than 

 others. If we consider force as persistent, and bear in mind 

 the law of causation, the predominance of some forces over 

 others becomes a necessity ; and the continuation of a force 

 through a longtime, that is, antiquity; or the accumulation 

 of forces in one direction, as by breeding to pedigree; or any 

 other method through which we obtain causes acting contin- 

 uously in one direction, strengthens such forces, and produces 



