ay influences the
inherited energies of the offspring.

This shows the capital importance of conjugation and of the substance
of the conjugated nuclei, especially of their chromatin. The fact
that, in certain of the lower animals, the protoplasm of the egg
without nuclei may occasionally produce some phenomena of cell
division, thanks to its inherited mnemic engrams, in no way alters the
fundamental principle which alone occurs in man, for this vicarious
action, which is moreover rudimentary, only happens when the
protoplasm of the egg is not consumed by the conjugated nuclei.

Parthenogenesis is also a very interesting phenomenon in the history
of our animal ancestors, but for the same reasons it has no direct
interest for humanity.

If we take into consideration all the observations of which we have
just spoken, which are as simple as they are irrefutably demonstrated,
it is hardly possible to interpret them in any other way than by the
following hypothesis:

In each sexual gland, male or female, the germinal cells which are
produced by division of the cells of the embryo, reserved primarily
for reproduction, differ considerably from each other in quality and
contain in their infinitely small atoms very diverse and irregularly
distributed energies, inherited from their different ancestors. Some
contain more paternal and others more maternal energy, and among the
former there are some contain, for example, more paternal grandfather
and others more maternal grandmother, and so on to infinity, till it
is impossible to discover the ancestral origin of the fully grown
individual we are examining. The same holds good for the energies of
the maternal cells.

At the time of conjugation, the qualities of the child which will
result from it depend therefore on conditions of the ancestral
qualities of the conjugated egg and spermatozoon. Moreover, although
of the same size, the nuclei which become conjugated are evidently of
unequal strength; the energies of one or the other predominate later
on in the embryo, and still later in man. According to circumstances
the latter will resemble more or less his paternal or maternal
progenitors.

Moreover, the different organs of the body may receive their energies
from different parts of the conjugated nuclei in different degrees. A
person may have his father's nose and his mother's eyes, the paternal
grandmother's humor and the maternal grandfather's intelligence, and
all this w