ON HEREDITY 



together to help us form our judgment of a single 

 human being with whom we are about to deal. 



As the weeks have rolled into months, and as the 

 months have melted into years, new impressions 

 have arisen to crowd out the old; stronger impres- 

 sions have supplanted the weak, bigger impressions 

 have taken the place of lesser ones — but the old 

 impressions are always there — always blending 

 themselves into our judgments, our ambitions, our 

 desires, our ideals — always ready and waiting, 

 apparently, to single themselves out and appear 

 before us brilliantly whenever the proper com- 

 bination of conditions arises. 



So, too, with the seed. 



Every drought that has caused hardship to its 

 ancestors is recorded as a tendency in that seed. 



Every favoring condition which has brought a 

 forbear to greater productiveness is there as a 

 tendency in that seed. 



Every frost, every rain, every rise of the 

 morning sun has left its imprint in the line of 

 ancestry and helped to mold tendencies to be 

 passed 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. 



One tendency stronger than another perhaps — 

 a good tendency suppressing a bad tendency — or 



[55] 



