contents of a sperm cell with those of a germ cell; that this
dynamic start is imparted from the life force of the parents; and
that this feeding environment is

11 Tract on the Origin and Propagation of the Soul, chap. i.

12 Flourens, Amount of Life on the Globe, part ii. ch. iii. sect. ii.

furnished by the circle of co ordinated relations. That the
formative power of the new organism comes from, or at least is
wholly conditioned by, the parent organism, should be believed,
because it is the obvious conclusion, against which there is
nothing to militate. That the soul of the child comes in some way
from the soul of the parent, or is stamped by it, is also implied
by the normal resemblance of children to parents, not more in
bodily form than in spiritual idiosyncrasies. This fact alone
furnishes the proper qualification to the acute and significant
lines of the Platonizing poet:

"Wherefore who thinks from souls new souls to bring,
The same let presse the sunne beames in his fist
And squeeze out drops of light, or strongly wring
The rainbow till it die his hands, well prest."

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh: that which is born of
the spirit is spirit." As the body of the child is the derivative
of a germ elaborated in the body of the parent, so the soul of the
child is the derivative of a developing impulse of power imparted
from the soul of the parent. And as the body is sustained by
absorbing nutrition from matter, so the soul is sustained by
assimilating the spiritual substances of the invisible kingdom.
The most ethereal elements must combine to nourish that consummate
plant whose blossom is man's mind. This representation is not
materialism; for spirit belongs to a different sphere and is the
subject of different predicates from matter, though equally under
a constitution of laws. Nor does this view pretend to explain what
is inherently transcendent: it leaves the creation of the soul
within as wide a depth and margin of mystery as ever. Neither is
this mode of exposing the problem atheistic. It refers the forms
of life, all growths, all souls, to the indefinable Power that
works everywhere, creates each thing, vivifies, governs, and
contains the universe. And, however that Power be named, is it not
God? And thus we still reverently hold that it is God's own hands
"That reach through nature, moulding men." The ancient heroes of
Greece and India were fond of tracing their genealogy up directly
t