The germ cell.—The difference between the germ cells of the lower animals and man is not in their structure, or their chemical elements, but in their inherent life. Here are three germ cells. As fast as the scientist is capable of analyzing them they may be absolutely identical in their physical anatomy, yet one may contain the life of a rabbit, another the life of a dog, and still another the soul of a man. The physical anatomy does not determine whether the offspring is to be a rabbit, a dog, or a human being. It is the resident life that determines this. Physical organs are the mediums through which life reproduces itself. The heredity of the offspring is determined by the many influences brought to bear upon it before birth and upon the lives of the ancestors.
Masculine and feminine principal.—The organic world is pregnant with two primary and vital principles, the masculine and the feminine. Every plant, lower animal, and man is reproduced by the union of these principles. In the lower forms of plant and animal life these two principles reside in the same organism. Reproduction takes place within the parent organism by the union of these two natures. The parent organism divides and becomes two distinct organisms. This is reproduction by division.
Reproduction in the lower forms of life.—In the next higher forms of plant and animal life these two principles reside in the same individuals, but in separate organs. These organs possessing the female nature produce seeds or eggs. The organs possessing the male nature produce a fertilizing substance called pollen or semen. Reproduction takes place by the fusion of the male and female cells.
In the higher animals and man these principles reside in separate individuals. In some mysterious way the procreative cells have residing within themselves, in rudimentary form, all the attributes of the parents.
Sex is in the life principle.—Once sex was considered a part of the physical organism. Now we are beginning to see that sex is vitally and substantially related to life. When a little plant comes into the world it is because the masculine and feminine sex principles have united on the plane of physical life. Like begets like. The baby plant did not possess animal life, intellectual life, or moral life for the reason that the parent plant could not transmit a form of life it did not possess in its masculine and feminine nature.
When the little animal comes into this world it is because the masculine and feminine principles have united on the plane of instinctive animal life and, among the higher classes of animals, rudimentary mental life.
Reproduction man.—Man is organized on higher planes than the rest of the organic world. Man possesses not only the highest form of physical life, but also mental and spiritual life. Sex in man is primarily and substantially related to his physical, mental and spiritual life. The sperm cell of the father is formed from his blood and possesses the essence of his three-fold nature. The germ cell of the mother is formed from her blood and possesses the essence of her three-fold nature. When these two cells, masculine and feminine, unite under proper conditions, a human being having a physical, mental and moral nature, is started upon its endless voyage, nine months before it makes its visible appearance in the world. When God made the body of primitive man He “breathed into him the breath of life (Hebrew lives) and man became a living soul,” having power of self-propagation and the power to transmit potential procreative power from one generation to another.
Man’s relation to the past.—Each new being at the initial of life is the sum total of all the influences, good and bad, of his ancestry back to Adam. The child is largely the product of his parents. He is not a duplicate of either, but the product of their blended personalities, being influenced much by his grand-parents, less and less as his ancestry becomes more and more remote. During embryonic and fetal development the child will tend to unfold in all departments of its nature according to the pattern received from its ancestors, but this may be more or less influenced by maternal impressions. After birth the child has two agents that will ever be active, heredity and environment. These two agents at their best are never perfect. Hence the child will ever need a third agent, the grace of God.
Why children in the same home differ.—Here is a family of five children. They differ from each other quite as much as if they represented five families. Now, if heredity does not explain this difference, then the children, having the same environment, would be alike. The children in the same home differ from each other for the reason that the parents, at the creative moment, did not sustain to each child the same combination of physical, mental and moral relations. At the creative moment of the second child the parents were not in the same physical, mental and moral states they were at the creative moment of the first. They had each changed in their physical states of health, their mental interests and in their moral and religious convictions and experiences. For the same reason each child differs from all the others in the family. Though they had the same environments, no two were alike. So great is the influence of heredity that no two people can be made alike by giving to them the same environment.
Twins.—If two persons could receive the same heredity and environment, they would be exactly alike. The nearest approach we have to this is in the case of twins. Nearly one-half of twins are so much alike