Dr. Chandler adds, "Woman as well as man needs to learn self-mastery. With a large amount of feeling in her nature, it is very hard for her to do it, but she should try. Too many of us go through life never making any effort to be our own masters. We give way to caprices, whims, feelings, follies, far more than is good for our health. Hysteria gives us a good example of the loss of self-control. Any uncontrolled passion gives an equally vivid example. Men and women often say they can't govern themselves; that is admitting they have defects of character which are their masters. They ought to make effort and see if they are not mistaken. The worst effect of lack of self-control are on the health. It allows every kind of bad habit in eating, drinking, dressing, sleeping, to gain possession of the person, and the result is a weak instead of a strong character." Considering the effect which the organic disposition of the mother has on the future offspring, it is evident that whether a child shall have the power of self-control depends very largely on the mother herself, and it is all-important, therefore, that she should have and exercise that power herself. As Dr. Chandler remarks, "No matter how much you have been to school, how many college degrees you have, you are not educated till you have a reasonable control of your own nature, and can direct your own lives rather than have them directed for you by your feelings and emotions." This truth obtains fresh significance when we consider that a woman's conduct affects the direction not only of her own life, but the lives of her future children, and possibly of succeeding generations. Although much has yet to be done to prove the actual effects on offspring of the conduct of its parents, enough is known to establish the fact that both the general disposition and the particular conduct of father or mother may interfere with the orderly action of the law of heredity. This law ensures the inheritance of race and individual characters; but when these are good, a noble life will cause the tendencies towards good to be still further strengthened in offspring, and if they are evil, then the disposition will receive an inclination in the opposite direction, or, at least, the further development of evil will be arrested. On the other hand, a degrading life will produce bad effects on offspring, causing deterioration of the organic disposition and strengthening the tendency to evil it may have inherited, or weakening its tendencies towards the good. FOOTNOTES: [57:A] "Heredity." By Th. Ribot (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1875), p. 201. [59:A] "The Origin of the Fittest." By E. D. Cope (D. Appleton & Co., New York). Page 408. [65:A] "Pioneering in New Guinea." By James Chalmers. 1887. Page 165. [66:A] "Development of Kinship and Marriage." Page 264. [67:A] "Researches into the Early History of Mankind." Page 292. [71:A] Cope's "Origin of the Fittest." (Redway, London. 1889.) Page 407.