All through nature, if you carefully think over the strict laws governing the continuation of life, you will be struck with wonder and reverence; not curiosity nor evil thoughts. At first it may sound a little harsh to have me tell you that you were developed from a single cell in your mother’s womb which had been vitalized by the seed of your father. But such is the undeniable truth, and it is the truth concerning ourselves that I want you to understand. Of course we are different from the mere animals in having a something in us that they do not apparently possess. This “something” may be called a soul, the essence of a Great Will, the evidence of God. But it makes no matter what you have been taught to call it――it is there; and some day you will recognize it. It is the great Power back of us, in us, ahead of us. It is the something we can feel, but not see nor demonstrate. As you study over what I tell you it will be plain that, while we can and should understand the laws of nature, this Power, the actual Power itself must be studied in our hearts. But no man has done justice to this great Will, or to God, or to himself, who has avoided trying to understand those laws which are indubitably for our benefit and future progress. One of the plain duties which the law points out to us, is that of so regulating our lives that we can give health and moral strength to those who come after us. And this can never be done unless we know and obey those laws which we have plainly set before us. Before going further into the facts of reproduction, let us see how strict Nature is in some of her laws controlling this process. Remember what I said about the marvelous fact that fishes do not inter-breed; that is, that the seed from a male salmon will not enter the eggs of a female bass, nor that of a “shiner” into a sunfish. Nature will not allow such a mixing of things. A dog cannot impregnate a cat, only a dog. So you see that Nature has so arranged matters that in spite of the running wild of all kinds of animals and species, each egg is so chemically adjusted that only the male seed made for its particular eggs can vitalize them. “But,” you say, “I saw at the circus a half tiger and a half lion, he rode a horse.” True, but you have so long been accustomed to think that the lion and tiger were different species of animals that it did not enter your minds that in reality they were the same. Both belong to the cat tribe――felines. Circus men call all these animals, lion, tiger, cougar, leopard, etc., “big cats.” In their natural state even these animals of the same species will not inbreed; there is a social class among them; and while man forced the lion to mate with the tiger, it was a forced marriage and presumably a disagreeable one. We have too many lion and tiger marriages in our own society. From all this we should derive a lesson.