THE STANDPOINT OF BIOLOGISTS. 41 



It appears then to be pretty certain that every man 

 and woman possesses a store of sexual cells, derived 

 directly from the original sexual cells from which he 

 or she was developed. These in the main are like 

 the original cell, being as they are of its substance, 

 but they show minor differences amongst themselves, 

 and give rise in their turn to offspring no two of 

 which are alike. These sexual cells, residing within 

 the paternal or maternal body, are uninfluenced by 

 the course of life led by that body, except, perhaps, 

 in some few cases in which the whole system and the 

 blood are impoverished, saturated with alcohol, or 

 infected with the microbes of disease, which microbes 

 in some cases, perhaps, directly attack the sexual 

 cells. 



The Facts of Evolutive Selection known to the 

 Gardener and Breeder. 



Scientific men are often very slow at arriving at a 

 truth, and there are many instances of valuable know- 

 ledge held by sections of the people in perhaps an 

 empirical fashion, which has at last found acceptance 

 by the learned. The practical results of all this 

 biological teaching has been in the hands of cattle- 

 breeders and nurserymen for centuries. The various 

 breeds of cattle have been produced by man, not by 

 any new method of ventilating the cow-sheds, or by 



