DUAL PARENTAGE. 137 



all races, nationalities and peoples in the United 

 States that produces the complex, progressive 

 character of its people and is destined to make it 

 the greatest nation on earth. 



The potency of dual parentage as expressed in 

 the origin of species and the multiplication of rac- The Blending of 

 ial and national peculiarities is also manifest in Fam "y Traits. 

 each individual member of a family. Every child 

 is the product of a double line of ancestors. In 

 each of its parents there is the accumulation of 

 the evolution of the species, plus racial and na- 

 tional characteristics, plus the family peculiarities. 

 Now, in the creation of a new life, these complex 

 organizations unite, thereby producing in the child 

 a nature more complex than that of either parent. 

 By this combining of the sexes the offspring be- 

 comes a compound of its parents ; it not only pos- Fyery Child a 



sesses to a greater or less degree the physical and 



mental characteristics of both parents, but be- 

 cause of their union in its life it may, and usually 

 does, possess many traits not found in either par- 

 ent. 



The outworkings of the factor of dual parent- 

 age are most easily discernible where morbid con- 

 ditions have been united. Thus, scrofulitic taint 

 in one parent and nervous irritability in the other 

 frequently produce epileptic or feeble-minded off- 

 spring. Dyspepsia in one parent and consumption Conditions. 

 in the other may produce general physical weak- 

 ness in offspring. Alcoholism in one parent may 

 combine with some morbid condition in the other 

 in such a way as to produce idiocy, insanity, or 

 the most vicious or criminal tendencies in off- 

 spring. Because of the bi-sexual parentage the 



