8 4 



HEREDITY. 



Evolution. 



Reproduction 



Evades 



Analysis. 



Biological 

 Speculation. 



things proceed." For myself I think of what we 

 call inorganic matter as the more inert substance 

 of the universe. I think of God as an Infinite 

 Spirit, omnipotent, omniscient, omniparous and 

 omnipresent; an all-powerful, all-wise, all-pro- 

 ducing, ever-present Being, the literal Father of 

 all life, the Over Soul of the Universe, in whom 

 all life inheres. I see all life as the manifestation 

 of God in nature, the expression of the imminent, 

 or indwelling God through physical forms. I 

 see evolution as the outworking of an infinite and 

 intelligent plan and man as its highest product. 

 This view may not be acceptable to all ; but since 

 it cannot be successfully contradicted, and since 

 no other theory will account for all the facts in 

 nature, and since all things take place just as if 

 it were true, we may safely accept it as a working 

 hypothesis in our study of the phenomena of life 

 and reproduction. 



If life is a mystery, when considered from a 

 purely materialistic point of view, its reproduc- 

 tion is not less so. The scientists of the age have 

 been, and still are, busily engaged with their 

 theories of "ids" and "idants," "gemmules," 

 "physiological units," "biophors," "germ-plasm," 

 etc., vainly searching for a physical explanation 

 of the phenomena of heredity.* There is a phy- 



*It is impossible in our limited space to give even a con- 

 densed statement of the many theories of heredity that 

 have been advanced by leading scientists. A brief syn- 

 opsis, however, of a few of the principal ones may prove 

 of interest to some of our readers. Democritus (400 

 B. C.) advanced the theory that all parts of the body con- 

 tributed to the "seed," and as a result the offspring was 



