CHAPTER I 



THE PROBLEM 



A CURIOUS thing in tlie history of human thought, 

 so far as literature reveals it to us, is the strange 

 lack of interest shown in one of the most interesting 

 of all human relationships. Few if any of the more 

 primitive peoples seem to have attempted to define 

 the part played by either parent in the formation of 

 the offspring, or to have assigned peculiar powers 

 of transmission to them, even in the vaguest way. 

 For ages man must have been more or less con- 

 sciously improving his domesticated races of animals 

 and plants, yet it is not until the time of Aristotle 

 that we have clear evidence of any hypothesis to 

 account for these phenomena of heredity. The pro- 

 duction of offspring by man was then held to be 

 similar to the production of a crop from seed. The 

 seed came from the man, the woman provided the 

 soil. This remained the generally accepted view for 

 many centuries, and it was not until the recognition 

 of woman as more than a passive agent that the 

 physical basis of heredity became established. That 

 recognition was effected by the microscope, for only 

 with its advent was actual observation of the minute 



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