Yet another aspect of the biological factor is to be found in the bearing of heredity on this question. To judge by the statements that one sometimes sees, men and women might be two distinct species, separately propagated. The conviction of some men that women are not fitted to exercise various social and political duties, and the conviction of some women that men are a morally inferior sex, are both alike absurd, for they both rest on the assumption that women do not inherit from their fathers, nor men from their mothers. Nothing is more certain than that--when, of course, we put aside the sexual characters and the special qualities associated with those characters--men and women, on the average, inherit equally from both of their parents, allowing for the fact that that heredity is controlled and modified by the special organisation of each sex. There are, indeed, various laws of heredity which qualify this statement, and notably the tendency whereby extremes of variation are more common in the male sex--so that genius and idiocy are alike more prevalent in men. But, on the whole, there can be no doubt that the qualities of a man or of a woman are a more or less varied mixture of those of both parents; and, even when there is no blending, both parents are almost equally likely to be influential in heredity. The good qualities of the one parent will therefore benefit the child of the opposite sex, and the bad qualities will equally be transmitted to the offspring of opposite sex.