No study is more fascinating than the study of the laws of
heredity. When a baby is born almost the first question is,
“Whom does he resemble?” For months and years friends peer into
the child’s face to discover, if possible, the family likeness.
It has its mother’s eyes or its father’s mouth. If no marked
resemblance can be found, the comment is, “How singular that
this child is unlike every one in the family.” Resemblance is
strange, but the absence of it, is more strange. A physical
feature appears and reappears for generations. A delicate ear,
looking like a translucent shell, is exactly reproduced. In some
instances a generation is skipt, and then the likeness comes
out again. A faded portrait or a medallion two hundred years
old is brought to light, and in it you see the young man who
stands by your side looking at it. Appetite for strong drink
is found to exist in a whole family. Many a son inherits from
his father tastes which almost inevitably produce the habit of
intemperance. One of the most fearful woes of drunkenness is
that it is entailed, and may become more terrible in the son
than it was in the father. Strong animal passions predominate
in some families, so that the sins of the fathers are repeated
in the sons and grandsons. The expressions “good blood,” and
“bad blood,” bear testimony to these well-known laws. In view of
these facts, the questions we ask are in substance the questions
of the disciples, “Where does the responsibility rest? Is there
any blame? Is there any release? What does the religion of Jesus
Christ say to these undeniable facts? Can it do anything to
change them?” Upon us, as we are, with our natural and inherited
characteristics, Christ performs His saving work. And it is
matter of common observation, as undeniable as the facts of
which we have been thinking, that those who truly become the
servants of Christ are changed in this very respect, that they
obtain genuine control over their inherited faults.--GEORGE
HARRIS, _Andover Review_.
(1618)
=Inharmony=--See DUALITY.
=Inhumanity=--See ANIMALS, ABSURD FONDNESS FOR; SLAVE TRADE,
ATROCITIES OF.