260 HEREDITY. 



2. The law of co-equal heredity is the loud proc- 

 lamation of monogamy as of natural — that is, of 

 divine — ordainment. 



3. The law of initial heredity has a similar mean- 

 ing. 



We are on holy ground. We may well pause here 

 to allow our thoughts time to suggest much which 

 ought not to be uttered audibly. There is a myste- 

 rious law by which the numbers of the two portions 

 of the human family are preserved in substantial 

 equality. Emigration may change the proportion of 

 the sexes. It is by no means denied by me, that in 

 some districts of the world the numbers of one sex 

 predominate over those of the other. But, on the 

 large average, in the natural arrangement of things, 

 there is an astonishing equality preserved between 

 these numbers by a fixed natural law. That signifi- 

 cant arrangement I call co-equal heredity. Now, if 

 you admit that marriage is a natural state, it is nat- 

 ural for every man ; and it follows therefore, mathe- 

 matically, and on this topic there is no louder procla- 

 mation in the universe, that the law of co-equal 

 heredity is the Divine ordainment of monogamy. 

 [Applause.] Your thoughts are following this line 

 of remark farther than my words have carried you ; 

 and I am willing that they should follow it on and 

 on, until, in the councils which preceded the forma- 

 tion of the world, you find the Divine fiat regulating 

 Parad:se. By natural law, Eden consists of Adam 

 and Eve, and not of Adam and two Eves or twenty. 

 [Applause.] There has been no departure from this 



