‘There are well-known examples of the children of religious and moral fathers exhibiting dispositions of a very inferior description; but in all of these instances that I have been able to observe, there has been a large development of the animal organs in the one parent, which was just controlled, but not much more, by the moral and intellectual powers; and in the other parent, the _moral_ organs did not appear to be in large proportion. The unfortunate child inherited the large animal development of the one, with the defective moral development of the other; and, in this way, was inferior to both. The way to satisfy one’s self on this point, is to examine the heads of the parents. In all such cases, a large base of the brain, which is the region of the animal propensities, will very probably be found in one or other of them. ‘Another organic law of the animal kingdom deserves attention; viz. that by which marriages betwixt blood relations tend decidedly to the deterioration of the physical and mental qualities of the offspring. In Spain, kings marry their nieces, and, in this country, first and second cousins marry without scruple; although every philosophical physiologist will declare that this is in direct opposition to the institutions of nature. This law holds also in the vegetable kingdom. “A provision, of a very simple kind, is, in some cases, made to prevent the male and female blossoms of the same plant from breeding together, this being found to hurt the breed of vegetables, just as breeding in and in does the breed of animals. It is contrived, that the dust shall be shed by the male blossom before the female is ready to be affected by it, so that the impregnation must be performed by the dust of some other plant, and in this way the breed be crossed.”’ Such considerations, I hope, will induce you to exercise cautious examination of this subject, if either of you should ever be placed in circumstances to contemplate assuming the duties of the wedded life. If you do not, you will have cast the pursuit of happiness upon the die of chance at the very outset of your career. Allow me, before I dismiss the book, from which I have already so liberally quoted, to extract one passage more, touching the application of the natural laws to the practical arrangements of life. ‘If a system of living and occupation were to be framed for human beings, founded on the exposition of their nature, which I have now given, it would be something like this. ‘1st. So many hours a day would require to be dedicated by every individual in health, to the exercise of his nervous and muscular systems, in labor calculated to give scope to these functions. The reward of obeying this requisite of his nature would be health, and a joyous animal existence; the punishment of neglect is disease, low spirits and death.