moment of
union of two gametes is decided the character of another zygote, as well as
the nature of the population of gametes which must make its home within
him. The union once affected the inevitable sequence takes its course, and
whether it be good, or whether it be evil, we, the zygotes, have no longer
power to alter it. We are in the hands of the gamete; yet not entirely. For
though we cannot influence their behaviour we can nevertheless control
their unions if we choose to do so. By regulating their marriages, by
encouraging the desirable to come together, and by keeping the undesirable
apart we could go far towards ridding the world of the squalor and the
misery that come through disease and weakness and vice. But before we can
be prepared to act, except, perhaps, in the simplest cases, we must learn
far more about them. At present we are woefully ignorant {185} of much,
though we do know that full knowledge is largely a matter of time and
means. One day we shall have it, and the day may be nearer than most
suspect. Whether we make use of it will depend in great measure upon
whether we are prepared to recognise facts, and to modify or even destroy
some of the conventions which we have become accustomed to regard as the
foundations of our social life. Whatever be the outcome, there can be
little doubt that the future of our civilisation, perhaps even the
possibility of a future at all, is wrapped up with the recognition we
accord to those who live unseen and inarticulate within us--the fateful
race of gametes so irrevocably bound to us by that closest of all ties,
heredity.

* * * * * {187}

APPENDIX

As some readers may possibly care to repeat Mendel's experiments for
themselves, a few words on the methods used in crossing may not be
superfluous. The flower of the pea with its standard, wings, and median
keel is too familiar to need description. Like most flowers it is
hermaphrodite. Both male and female organs occur on the same flower, and
are covered by the keel. The anthers, ten in number, are arranged in a
circle round the pistil. As soon as they are ripe they burst and shed their
pollen on the style. The pollen tubes then penetrate the stigma, pass down
the style, and eventually reach the ovules in the lower part of the pistil.
Fertilisation occurs here. Each ovule, which is reached by a pollen tube,
swells up and becomes a seed. At the same time the fused carpels enclosin