Heredity

Every child is as uninvited as a monstrosity.

On such subjects there is no science, but only a sort of ardent ignorance, and nobody has ever been able to offer any theories of moral heredity which justified themselves in the only scientific sense.

That is, that one could calculate on them beforehand.

There are six cases, say, of a grandson having the same twitch of mouth or vice of character as his grandfather.

There is not one case.

There are no cases at all of anybody betting half a crown that the grandfather will have a grandson with the twitch or the vice.

In short, we deal with heredity as we deal with omens, affinities, and the fulfillment of dreams.

The things do happen, and when they happen we record them.

So Indiana is the first state to have a law that allows the government to forcibly sterilize people who are unfit.

The preamble to this law claimed, "Heredity plays a most important role of the transmission of crime." A decade later, 15 states had similar laws allowing compulsory sterilization.

Now-

Geez

The lampshell, lingula, seems to have remained stagnant for many millions of years, a fine creature, but icily perfect.

Heredity is the relation of organic continuity between successive generations, the living on of the past in the present, the flesh-and-blood linkage between an individual and his forebears on the one hand, his offspring on the other.

The individual is like a lens into which rays from parentage and ancestry converge, from which they diverge again to the progeny.

Heredity is the reproductive relation which secures that like tends to beget like, and yet seldom does.

Some peculiarities of an individual are heritable, others are not.

Longevity is readily entailed, but genius is not.

The variations or novelties are the qualities to be tested.

The struggle for existence, which includes the organism's endeavors, is the sieve that tests.