The explanation of contrary sexual feeling by Krafft-Ebing, that it is a peculiarity bred in the descendants but rooted in the ancestry,1 strikes me as being not only the acutest, but most conformable to reason, that I have yet encountered. The hereditary element may be an abnormal tendency toward the same sex, in the parent, strengthened and developed by external causes into positive inversion, in the child; but, until we know something further of these minute and marvellous processes in reproduction, by which the egg-cell develops, either directly or indirectly, into its parental analogue and resemblance, repeating, through long cycles of synthetic metabolism, peculiarities and characteristics which may have arisen originally from spontaneous variation, we may as well deal almost wholly with external causative influences, and content ourselves with the vulgar apothegm that "like begets like," restricting our inquiries to facts and phenomena susceptible of actual demonstration.

Heredity Further Considered

The remark of Richter that " the clue of our identity, wander where we will, lies at the foot of the cradle," a repetition of which is found in the common saying that if you want to reform a child you must begin with its grandfather, is doubtless true, within certain limits; but,