THE DESCENT OF BAD TRAITS AND GOOD. 259 



name of the laws of hereditary descent, let us have 

 courage to build a road the other way, from Eden 

 out across chaos over the outer works of infamy and 

 degradation, and through the gates of death, into the 

 caverns of the lost spirits. Let us, standing upon 

 the mighty parapet of loyalty to natural truth, that 

 is, to God's will as revealed in the family, build a 

 bridge out from it into the world of souls in chains 

 and darkness, and meet Satan half-way, throttling 

 him backward beyond the forms of Sin and Death. 

 [Applause.] 



These are the twelve propositions on which I dare 

 put foot, after a prolonged study of this theme : — 



1. The best results for the improvement of the 

 race will be attained by obedience not to a few, nor 

 to most, but to all of the seven laws of heredity, — 

 direct, reversional, collateral, co-equal, pre-marital, 

 pre-natal, and initial. (For definitions of these terms 

 see the ninety-ninth Boston Monday Lecture.) 



Here are the seven laws of hereditary descent, and 

 you and I cannot vote them up or down. We may 

 obey them, or disobey them ; but, if the race is to be 

 improved to the utmost by the application of these 

 laws, the first thing to feel sure about is that we must 

 obey, not one or several, but all of them. The trou- 

 ble with most reforms of the wild sort is that they are 

 merely fragmentary attempts at loyalty to nature. 

 They put into the foreground some one of these 

 seven principles, and not all of them. Nature re- 

 venges herself always for any partial loyalty with 

 which we serve her. [Applause.] 



