causes increasing among that people the number of happy marriages, and consequently giving vigor to the population. This is one of the grand secrets of race-improvement by heredity. Instead of looking for wealth, men must look for beauty, character, and virtue. So long as they persist in forming alliances with women of feeble constitution, or lacking essential qualifications, the race will decline and degenerate. And, of course, the same deplorable consequences follow from the marriage of noble and well-organized women with men of inferior type. Fortunately, the tact and the instinctive dignity of women, and their natural liking for what is exalted, usually prevent their descending to debasing or dangerous alliances, and nearly always guard them against ill-assorted matches. "In place of giving way to sympathetic emotions," says M. Sédillot, which disorder the judgment, let one put himself the question, on seeing a person that pleases him, if he wants to have sons and daughters of that same type; and it is curious to note how often the reply will be in the negative. It were unreasonable, no doubt, to forego present advantage for the sake of some uncertain advantage in the future; still, wisdom requires us to bring the two into harmony, and to remember how swiftly time passes away, and how little is the value of the passing hour, as compared with the hopes and the enjoyments of the future." M. Sédillot adds that, in ordinary times, hygiene, the moral evidence of the advantages of health and intelligence, would suffice for the regeneration of a people. France, unfortunately, has need of stronger and more efficacious agencies; she must go back to the very fountain-head of regeneration and of life, that is to say, must discover the speediest means of insuring to the coming generations a future of virtue and mettle. In other times it may have appeared difficult or ill-advised to import, into questions touching the reproduction of man, figures and estimates not unlike those employed in zootechny, where selection has long been practised. But now such scruples must give way before the dictates of necessity, which tells us in the most unmistakable way that we cannot afford to commit one blunder more.

Here we have to point out the means of staying or of reducing as far as possible the fatal heredity of disease, which is so powerful an obstacle to the improvement of the race. The preventive or prophylactic agencies which are to be employed to counteract the evolution of disease-germs depend, of course, on the nature of these latter. A consumptive mother must not suckle her infant; she ought to intrust it to the care of a good nurse. Those whose parents were affected with chest-diseases thrive but ill on an excessively animal diet: a regimen of white meats and light foods is best suited for them. As regards occupation, they should carefully avoid all such as would expose them to inhale dust, or to undergo alternations of heat and cold, or to use the voice habitually. Residence by the sea-side, in the south, and in localities where consumption is of rare occurrence,

is the best prophylactic against this fearful disease. Individuals predisposed to scrofula require pure air, substantial tonic diet, and an atmosphere like that on the sea-coast of Northwestern Europe. Those who are threatened with gout or gravel must oblige themselves to the strictest temperance and take abundant exercise. Regularity and uniformity of life are the rule for those predisposed to cancer. Persons who reckon epileptics among their ascendants require the utmost care. All their functions must be tranquillized; they must allow themselves no excesses; must avoid fatigue; must guard against emotional excitement-in a word, they must be always surrounded with tranquillizing influences. Those predisposed to insanity are to be treated in a similar manner, that is to say, with great gentleness; and their passions are to be stilled. The course of life best suited to them is one which does not call for much intellectual activity, and which holds out no visions of fame or fortune. Preventing or checking in the individuals themselves the development of disease-germs is, however, but a secondary consideration; the chief point is, to prevent the migration of these germs into new generations. But, to attain this result, we must not only multiply and facilitate marriages which shall be in conformity with hygienic and moral laws, we have furthermore to discourage alliances the fruits of which can only be of blighted constitution in body and soul. Physicians ought to use all their influence to prevent the intermarriage of persons evidently predisposed to the various forms of neurosis, to tubercle, scrofula, etc. When the ascendants of one of the parties are hereditarily of a morbid constitution, the physician should at least insist on the importance of having the other party perfectly healthy, possessed of great vigor, and, above all, of a temperament the reverse of that of his or her partner. In this way the danger of hereditary taint is diminished, though it were better not to incur such danger at all. But this is a point

of so delicate a nature that we cannot dwell upon it here. We must, however, say something about consanguineous marriages, a subject which has given rise to much warm controversy during the past few years. Some physicians, and among them Broca and Bertillon, hold that races which are least mixed, which are purest, are better fitted than crossed races to withstand the causes of degeneracy. According to them, the evil consequences charged on consanguinity are the result of very different agencies, especially the hereditary affections of the ascendants. Trousseau and Boudin, on the other hand, say that marriages between individuals of the same stock oftentimes yield unhealthy fruits-lunatics and idiots. The balance would appear to have been struck in favor of the first opinion. It was but the other day, that Auguste Voisin, in making inquiries of the relatives of more than 1,500 patients in the Bicêtre and the Salpêtrière, found that in none of these cases could the disease be attributed to consanguinity. If the latter had been so infallible a cause of degeneracy,

its effects would have been seen in that large number of madmen and idiots.

Although theorizers have exaggerated the influence of heredity, it cannot be denied that it plays a part in the genesis of temperament and character, and here we have a warrant for the employment of every means that will favor the transmission of the most desirable aptitudes. In ancient Rome, women of the highest distinction, who were respected by all, imported into another family, with their husbands' consent, their superiority of blood. Quintus Hortensius, the friend and admirer of Cato, having failed to win his daughter Portia, asked for his wife Marcia, and Cato gave her to him. The grossness of such customs shocks our finer sense, but its explanation is to be found in the anxiety of a Roman head of a family to insure for his descendants the highest grade of masculine vigor, and the most solid virtues.

Under the old constitution of society in France, the tenure of high offices and trusts, and the following of some special profession by one family from generation to generation, had their rise and bases in the unconscious observation that aptitudes are hereditary; and M. Sédillot regrets that the revolutions of modern society have done away with this wholesome tradition, which, in every grade of the social scale, morally constrained the son to follow in his father's steps. This point must not be overlooked by races which care for self-improvement.

Another point for such races to bear in mind, and one of readier application, is the necessity of a sound and enlightened system of education. On this topic, those who have the future of France at heart, have but one opinion, viz., that the coming generations must be invigorated by giving more prominence to bodily exercise, and by exempting children from employments injurious to health. They have no thought of interfering with classical studies or the humanities, which will continue to be the chief element in moral culture; the only question is, whether the young could not acquire the treasures of Latinity and Hellenism in less time, and bestow some little study on matters of modern interest. There are sundry branches in which they now obtain no instruction, but which they might study much to the advantage of their intellectual development. This is not the place to enforce this argument; but it does seem unquestionable that, by means of a thorough system of education, proceeding on new principles, we might be able, if not exactly to change the whole character of a people, as Leibnitz thought, at least to do away with most of the influences which, for want of suitable training, cause them to fall into decay.

The conviction that it is possible to counteract the dangerous impulsions of heredity and to triumph over the tyrannies of Fate-at least to acquire a moral superiority over them-is a most wholesome one to spread abroad and to bring into acceptance. A strong will is in itself a power. Even though it were not so easy a thing as it is, to prevail

over the blind forces of Nature, simply by the overmastering power of a resolute and sagacious will, there would still exist abundant grounds for believing that man has the power of modifying and amending his own conduct; that he is not the plaything of inflexible Destiny; and that he may not give way, without resistance or remorse, to his evil instincts. Let us believe in heredity, in so far as it may be made a means of improvement and of free perfectionment. But let us withhold our assent when there is claimed for it a despotic power so absolute as it would be madness to resist. Education has not only to improve the race, but also to give men a desire for improvement, by showing them that it is possible. In alliance with a judicious cultivation of desirable hereditary tendencies, education overmasters noxious proclivities and regenerates the race.

We must not, however, attribute to education an exaggerated importance, nor imagine that by itself alone it can call forth preeminent ability. Its influence, like that of heredity, is limited. Genius, which is the most perfect expression of mind, considered as a free creative force, is controlled by neither. It is a mighty tree whose fruits give sustenance to generations, and the conditions of whose growth are such that we can no more foresee or determine its appearing than we can prescribe rules for its behavior afterward, or estimate its fruitfulness. Fortunately, geniuses are not indispensable, and, in proportion as the national average rises, the less need is there for them. But the general average rises of necessity when all the citizens are animated with the one desire of improvement. Hereditary cultivation, proceeding by means of a rigid selection of the influences which tend to improve the race, may be confidently commended to those nations who are ambitious of holding the first rank in the world.-Revue des Deux Mondes.

THE

HÄCKEL'S MONERS.

BY AIME SCHNEIDER.

HE moners are the simplest organisms we know of-we might even say, the simplest that can exist. In them, life is exhibited under the form that is best fitted to give us an idea of its essential characters, stripped of all secondary attributes. The first moner was discovered by the celebrated Prof. Häckel, of Jena, in 1864, and the number has gone on steadily increasing ever since. These discoveries have made a great stir in the scientific world, owing to their bearing on our theories of organization.

The moner which best typifies the entire class is the Protomyxa aurantiaca. This little creature, hardly visible to the naked eye, and, at most, as big as a small pin-head, is of a fine orange-red color, con

sists of a perfectly homogeneous and transparent mass of jelly, and offers the paradox of an organism without organs. Nor is this absence of organs merely apparent, or owing to the imperfection of our magnifying-glasses; it is real, and every thing about these little creatures goes to prove their perfect simplicity of structure. This gelatinous, homogeneous, contractile substance has been called sarcode, and also, but improperly, animal protoplasm.

HISTORY OF THE PROTOMYXA AURANTIACA, ACCORDING TO HACKEL.

1. The moner in a state of repose.

2. The same sending forth its pseudopodes and embedding a foreign body in itself.

3. The same in process of reproduction, after having exuded its envelope, and split up into a number of spherical masses.

4. A young moner set free after the bursting of the envelope.

5. The same in a more advanced stage, with its pseudopodes.

In repose, the moner is nearly spherical, and gives no sign of life. But soon this little ball flattens itself out, its mass expands in various directions, and these expansions, which have received the name of false feet, or pseudopodes, keep up a continual movement of protrusion and retraction. Sometimes the moner flows all in one direction, and this is its way of moving from place to place. When, in the course of this slow progress over the calcareous slime of the sea-bottom, the moner falls in with one of those microscopic organisms called diatoms, it embeds it in its own body; the alimentary substances contained in the diatom are dissolved and assimilated, and the indigestible portions are left behind as the creature moves along. Thus, we have the curious phenomenon of a creature which feeds without mouth, without stomach, without apparatus of any kind, simply by incorporating into itself, as it moves, prey of every kind. In taking food, the animal appears to be passive, its seizing on its prey being a mere incident of its moving about.