'} 



CHAPTER III 



PHYSICAL HEREDITY 



It will help us to form intelligent opinions 

 concerning the law of heredity if we consider it 

 more in detail, and with illustrations. Two laws 

 govern the transmission of life, viz. the law of 

 uniformity, and the law of diversity. Under the 

 law of uniform transmission of organization chil- 

 dren receive from their parents not only the gen- 

 eral physical characteristics of their parents, " but 

 also their mental and moral constitutions."^ This 

 resemblance is not only in their original and essen- 

 tial characteristics, but, some maintain, " even in 

 acquired habits of life, of intellect, of virtue, of 

 vice."i Under the law of diversity deformity and 

 ugliness give birth to manly strength and beauty ; 

 the sick bear offspring remarkable for health; "vir- 

 tue is succeeded by vice, intellect by imbecility, 

 and the converse of all these phenomena."^ The 

 one law accounts for all that comes from the past ; 

 the other law for all that is new and peculiar in 

 the development of life. 



1 A Physician'' s Problems, Elam, p. 4. 

 21 



