i6 Heredity and Child Culture 



To quote, — *' Heritage is the sum of all those 

 qualities which are determined or caused by 

 this germinal organization. Development is 

 progressive and co-ordinated differentiation of 

 this germinal organization by which it is trans- 

 ferred into the adult organization." Again, 

 ''Inherited traits are not transmitted from 

 parents to offspring but the germinal factors or 

 causes are transmitted, and under proper con- 

 ditions of environment these give rise to de- 

 veloped characters. Every oosperm as well as 

 every developed organism differs more or less 

 from every other one, and this remarkable con- 

 dition is brought about by extremely numerous 

 permutations in the distribution of the chro- 

 mosomes of the sex cells in maturation and 

 fertilization." Professor Henry Fairfield Os- 

 born, in his remarkable book, The Origin and 

 Evolution of Life, falls back on an energy con- 

 ception of life. Some of his ideas are put in a 

 striking way as follows, — ''We know to some 

 extent how plants and animals evolve; we do 

 not know why they evolve* * * * * All the ex- 

 planations of evolution which have been 



