THE BEARING OF THIS WORK 

 ON HUMAN LIFE 



On Improving the Human Plant 



STUDENTS of heredity are becoming more 

 and more agreed that the same laws and 

 principles apply to the organisms of the 

 vegetable and animal worlds. This is quite what 

 might be expected, considering the fundamental 

 identity of protoplasm, which is the physical 

 basis of all life. But quite aside from any 

 theoretical deductions in the matter, a wide 

 range of experiments with many types of ani- 

 mals has brought conclusive evidence that strik- 

 ing analogies are everywhere to be found 

 between the manner of transmission of traits 

 and characteristics in plants and animals. 



Moreover observations of human genealogy 

 have shown that man himself is subject to pre- 

 cisely the same laws of heredity that apply to 

 the lowliest vegetable or animal organisms. We 

 must of course make allowance for differences 

 incident to the elaborate organism of man, and 



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