IDENTITY OF PARENT AND OFFSPRING. 213 



14. If the two parts which are united by the 

 pistils and stamens of the flowers of the oak are 

 destroyed, that which is destroyed is not life, but 

 vitality. 



15. If an acorn be destroyed after it has become 

 germinant, not merely vitality is destroyed, but life. 



16. This law holds good in all the higher organiza- 

 tions, not excepting man. 



I am passing here across chasms in which lie dead 

 men's bones, and dead women's, not merely in China, 

 not merely among the seven hills of Rome, not merely 

 among Romanists, but among Protestants, and under 

 the shadow of church-spires on the Christian sward of 

 New England. [Applause.] Dr. Storer is the au- 

 thority for you to read ; and a famous essay of his 

 ("Why Not?" Lee & Shepard, 1875), scattered 

 broadcast over America by vote of the American 

 Medical Association, I need only name to give suffi- 

 cient emphasis to unspeakable matters here visible, 

 but not audible. 



17. The authorities of the medical profession are 

 right, therefore, in speaking of a certain nameless 

 crime, or the destruction of pre-natal life, as murder. 



Do you say that in the human case there is no oak 

 destroyed ? What ? You affirm that, to make any 

 organism human, there must be in it a soul, and that, 

 until a soul exists in it, the organism is merely an 

 animal. What makes a soul ? Memory, conscience, 

 are essential parts of the human spirit. When does 

 memory start up in a human being? What are the 

 first things you can remember? Ruskin, there on 



