INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY 109 



and helped to mold tendencies to be passed on 

 from plant to plant. 



Beneath the wooden-looking, hard-sheathed 

 covering of the seed, there is confined a bundle 

 of tendencies — an infinite bundle — and nothing 

 more to give its product character. 



One tendency stronger than another perhaps 

 — a good tendency suppressing a bad tendency 

 — or the other way, tendencies inherited from 

 immediate parents, tendencies originating from 

 the influences of twenty centuries or more ago — 

 tendencies which are latent, awaiting only the 

 right combination of conditions to bring them 

 to life; all of the tendencies of a complex ances- 

 try — some lulled to sleep, but none obliterated; 

 that is a seed. 



The whole life history of a plant is stored away 

 in its seeds. 



If we plant a great number of the seeds we 

 shall be able to read more or less clearly its life 

 history with its variations, its hardships, all of its 

 improvements and retrogressions uncovered be- 

 fore us. 



Who knows what little thing will change 

 a career? Or what accident will transform 

 an ideal? Or what triviality, out of the or- 

 dinary, will lead to the discovery of a new 

 truth? 



