f humanity have, so far, been
powerless to unclasp. But, to quote the stirring words of one who looked
with prophetic, faithful eye into the tangled problems of futurity:

"The people will come into their own at last,--
God is not mocked for ever."

My Law of the Cross-Transmission of Characteristics may be simply stated
as follows:

Under all conditions, the matter of sex is determined in the egg-cell at
the moment of fertilization.

Under all conditions, the sex is determined by a struggle for the
mastery in the egg-cell, between the energy of that egg-cell and the
energy of the male spermatozoon. In a crisis, when the life of one of
the two seeds is trembling in the balance, one of them--through the
exertion of its "Latent Reserve Energy," dominates, and engenders a
child of the opposite sex. This reversal of the sex is in conformity
with the Law of the _Cross-Transmission of Sex_; that is, the mother is
represented in the male offspring and the father in the female,--this
being the normal expression of the Law of Cross-Transmission of
Characteristics.

The "Latent Reserve Energy" is provided by nature for the "Preservation
of Species," and through this provision an impulsive, vehement energy
can, at the final moment of a crisis, be called upon for the salvation
of its kind.

A _seeming_ exception to this is due to the "Law of the Dominant" which
overrides the action of "Latent Reserve Energy," and is a provision of
nature for the preservation of the "Dominant," which is the most
prominent quality in nature.

When the subject is properly understood, this _seeming_ exception will
also become clear.

In the natural course, the study of heredity leads to the understanding
of _predisposition_. In other words, if you have understood heredity, it
will be easy to understand predisposition; for it means that the
protoplasm or seed, from whichever organism it may proceed, must contain
some of the salient characteristics of its ancestors, good and bad,
dominant and recessive. Not only will it contain characteristics from
father and mother, but from _all_ the direct ancestors. It is impossible
to know exactly which points will manifest themselves, but a good many
_bad_ points _may be_ eliminated by studying the ancestral line; and the
direct diseases or bad characteristics of a parent, _must be_ eliminated
by applying the Law of the Cross-Transmission of Characteristics.

For example: If the father has a certa