of the Cross-Transmission of Characteristics” will become amply apparent and the intelligent reader will undoubtedly wonder why it has not been applied and acknowledged long ago.  For answer, I must refer you to the schools, whose policy it has ever been to, at any rate, abstain from assisting, if not absolutely to diplomatically hinder the development of fresh scientific discoveries.  But the time is fast approaching when a sharp and decisive end to this iniquity will be demanded by the will of an enlightened people; only then will the existing orthodox power be compelled to loosen its obstructive grip which the interests of humanity have, so far, been powerless to unclasp.  But, to quote the stirring words of one who looked with prophetic, faithful eye into the tangled problems of futurity: 

  “The people will come into their own at last,—­
    God is not mocked for ever.”

My Law of the Cross-Transmission of Characteristics may be simply stated as follows: 

Under all conditions, the matter of sex is determined in the egg-cell at the moment of fertilization.

Under all conditions, the sex is determined by a struggle for the mastery in the egg-cell, between the energy of that egg-cell and the energy of the male spermatozoon.  In a crisis, when the life of one of the two seeds is trembling in the balance, one of them—­through the exertion of its “Latent Reserve Energy,” dominates, and engenders a child of the opposite sex.  This reversal of the sex is in conformity with the Law of the Cross-Transmission of Sex; that is, the mother is represented in the male offspring and the father in the female,—­this being the normal expression of the Law of Cross-Transmission of Characteristics.

The “Latent Reserve Energy” is provided by nature for the “Preservation of Species,” and through this provision an impulsive, vehement energy can, at the final moment of a crisis, be called upon for the salvation of its kind.

A seeming exception to this is due to the “Law of the Dominant” which overrides the action of “Latent Reserve Energy,” and is a provision of nature for the preservation of the “Dominant,” which is the most prominent quality in nature.

When the subject is properly understood, this seeming exception will also become clear.

In the natural course, the study of heredity leads to the understanding of predisposition.  In other words, if you have understood heredity, it will be easy to understand predisposition; for it means that the protoplasm or seed, from whichever organism it may proceed, must contain some of the salient characteristics of its ancestors, good and bad, dominant and recessive.  Not only will it contain characteristics from father and mother, but from all the direct ancestors.  It is impossible to know exactly which points will manifest themselves, but a good many bad points may be eliminated by studying the ancestral line; and the direct diseases or bad characteristics of a parent, must be eliminated by applying the Law of the Cross-Transmission of Characteristics.