II 



few more mysterious than those of hereditary transmission. 

 Around, but outside, these arcana of nature, science is 

 earnestly at work seeking, recording analysing, general- 

 izing, and determined to force from even the heart of Nature 

 her most hidden mysteries, if within the possibility of 

 human achievement ; but until her eye is enabled to see far 

 deeper than heretofore into that which is as yet inscrutable, 

 the mighty problems of generation and transmission must 

 remain unsolved, whilst those who follow in the train of 

 science must, in the meantime, content themselves with 

 general conclusions justified by phenomena, whilst they 

 hopefully await the result. 



Within two minute cells one the " sperm-cell " of 

 the male, the other the " germ-cell " of the female, and as 

 such different in nowise from any other cells, so far as can 

 be ascertained by any human power of analysis and by 

 whose fusion the "embryonic vesicle" is produced, lie 

 hidden the mysteries of generation and heredity ; and 

 science, with all her powers, can reduce them no further. 

 Take these two little cells as representing a point equally 

 dividing a right line, at each end of which is the barrier of 

 infinity. From this point in one direction we follow man 

 from the cell and its development, through uterine existence, 

 and having within him the transmitted qualities of his 

 parents and ancestry pKysical, intellectual, and moral 

 acquiring individual modifications which will in turn be 

 transmitted to his descendants, through all the mazes 

 of his life, for weal or woe, with all life's power and 

 purpose, until the destiny of his humanity is fulfilled, 

 and he goes down into the " Valley of the Shadow," 

 having left his impress on his survivors, and into the 

 presence of the Infinite ! From the same point in the 



