It is true that the extent to which the incarnation of ideals is effective or even possible has not been measured; it is also true that the naturalists of the higher culture-stages commonly neglect the process; yet the occasional recognition of its positive aspect, as in Goethe’s “elective affinities” and in Jacob’s getting of “ringstraked, speckled, and spotted” stock (Genesis XXX, 37-41), and the practically universal recognition—more especially among primitive peoples—of its negative aspect in adverse prenatal influences, clearly indicates its importance; the fact that the ancient Greeks at once idealized in unparalleled degree, and produced unexcelled perfection in, the human form being of no small significance. Even if the measure of the incarnation of ideals be reduced to the lowest minimum consistent with common knowledge, it remains true that the progeny of successive generations are not the offspring of average parents, but of pairs at the perfection and conjugal culmination of their virile and muliebrile excellencies; so that the generations must run in courses of cumulatively increasing racial (or human) perfection, under a general _law of conjugal conation_. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXII THE HELIOTYPE PRINTING CO., BOSTON SERI MATRON] In extending the general law of conjugal conation to the Seri, it is found peculiarly applicable, in view of their distinctive marriage custom, the effect of which is to intensify conjugal sentiments, with the attendant magnification, and potential if not actual incarnation, of ideals.[256] Accordingly there would appear to be a harmony between Seri race-sense and Seri race-type no less delicate than that between the stressful action and the stress-shaped structures of the tribe, and while the inception of both type and feeling may be ascribed to the isolated environment, it seems manifest that both have interacted constructively and in cumulative fashion through a significant process exemplified more clearly by this tribe than by others thus far studied. At the same time, analysis of the harmony between type and sentiment indicates that the lowly Seri are actually, albeit unconsciously, carrying out a meaningful experiment in stirpiculture—an experiment whose methods and results are equally valuable to students. The Seri gymnastic and the Seri stirpiculture are in close accord, in that both are conditioned by initially dilatory yet ultimately intense action; the results are equally accordant in that the one conduces toward individual vigor and the other toward a vigorous and distinctive stirp; while the excellence of the methods (viewed from the somatic standpoint) is attested by the magnificence of the product. Now, comparison of the stirpicultured Seri with contemporary tribes shows that the desert-bound folk have attained unequaled somatic development, and suggests that the intuitive stirpicultural processes have been rendered peculiarly