592 
HEREDITARY INFLUENCE. 
his daughters showed the same peculiarity from her birth, 
and constantly assumed it in her cradle, in spite of her 
swathings. Venette knew a woman who limped with the 
right leg ; her daughter was born with the defect in her 
right leg. Ambrose Pare noticed that several children who 
had a peculiar mode of shaking the head, inherited it from 
their parents. 
The inevitable conclusion from all these facts is, that 
parents transmit their individual peculiarities of colour, form, 
longevity, idiosyncrasy, &c., to their offspring, and that they 
do this not as reproducing the species , but as reproducing their 
own individual organizations . But now comes the difficult 
part of our inquiry : — Which is the predominating influence, 
that of the male or that of the female ? If both parents 
join to form the child, does one parent give one group of 
organs, and another parent another group ; or do both give all ? 
“ Half is his, and half is thine : it will be worthy of the two !” 
sings the poet; and the physiologist asks, — Which half? 
Speaking of mules, Vicq-d 5 Azyr says, with proper caution, 
that “it seems as if the exterior and the extremities were 
modified by the father, and that the viscera emanate from 
the mother / 5 The reserve with which the great anatomist 
expresses himself has not been imitated by his successors ; 
indeed, men are generally averse to uncertainties — they 
like a decisive opinion, a distinct formula. Hence we have 
the very popular formula adopted by Mr. Orton in his 
“ Lectures, 5 ’ — “ That the male gives the external configura- 
tion, or, in other words, the locomotive organs ; while the 
female gives the internal, or in other words, the vital 
organs; 5 ’ which is generally stated with more scientific 
precision thus — “ the male gives the animal system, the 
female the organic or vegetative. 5 ’ Very great and authori- 
tative names may be cited in support of this view; and as 
all such formulas are the expressions of numerous facts, 
we must expect to find their advocates powerful in facts to 
support them. If there are facts which are equally explicit 
and diametrically opposed to those used as evidence for 
the theory, it is clear that the theory expresses only part 
of the truth. Let us see how the case stands. 
Linnaeus says that the internal plant (i. e., the organs of 
fructification) in all hybrids is like the female ; the external 
(organs of vegetation), on the contrary, resembles the male. 
This is, however, diametrically opposed by De Candolle, 
who announces it as a general law that the organs of vege- 
tation are given by the female, those of fructification by 
