CHAPTER I 



THE PROBLEM 



A cxjRious thing in the 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 beeii 

 more or less consciously improving his domesticated races 

 of animals and plants, yet it is not until the time of Aris- 

 totle that we have clear evidence of any hypothesis to 

 accoimt 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 re- 

 mained 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 ob- 



