301.

PARENTAGE-ITS REPRODUCTIVE EFFICIENCY.

PARENTAGE perpetuates our race. Besides re-supplying the ravages of war and pestilence, of death in all his insatiate cravings, it even far outstrips him in swiftness, and rises above him in might, literally DEFYING his power to annihilate the species. Man WILL multiply, the earth WILL be replenished, in SPITE of him!

What magnificent results, from an arrangement so simple! Wastes, but yesterday desolate, to-day it is beginning to people, and anon will have crowded with homes, hamlets, villages, and cities, swarming with countless millions, and teeming with life and happiness. It plants its seeds of humanity upon solitary islands, and then fills them with throngs of busy occupants. It sends its hardy progeny almost to the icy poles, to multiply in spite of all that is terrible in the utmost of cold, and wind, and storm. Anon, it takes possession of the tropics, still urging on its grand process of propagation, though melted to weakness, and scorched to blackness. In short, wherever life can be sustained, thither does or will this prolific principle send the swarming trophies of its power to "multiply and replenish the earth," till it is literally full. But for this, or a kindred arrangement, our earth would have been a solitary waste, without one living soul, except the first parents of our

race, to have enjoyed its beauties and its bounties. Even beast, bird, fish, reptile, insect-animal life in every form and grade, other than the first God-created pair-would have had no existence; and all the adaptations of water, air, and earth, to their subsistence and happiness, would have been in vain. Even the entire vegetable kingdom would have passed away in its very infancy, to return no more for ever; because reproduction here also is effected by that same great principle of parental agency which obtains in the world of animation and sense.*

Considering, then, either its extraordinary efficiency in reproducing such vast hordes of herbs, trees, animals, and human beings—and at the same time that it multiplies our race, it also augments the means of re-supplying their constantly returning wants—or its own philosophical beauty and perfection, surely no department of creation evinces more the very infinitude of His concurrent wisdom and goodness who made all things, than this arrangement of parentage. Nor is any more promotive of human progression in numbers and happiness; for it is the beginning and foundation of all the interests of man-those myriads of human beings who have thus far inhabited our earth, and the millions that now enjoy its luxuries, each being but the products of this great contrivance, as will be all those who, in all coming time, may rise up, in successive generations, to people this world and another.

302. ITS COLLATERAL INSTITUTIONS.

Parentage also ushers in the connubial, parental, and filial affections, together with all the domestic ties. But for it or a kindred arrangement, the delightful relations of husband and wife, parents and children, and all the heaven-born pleasures

* To become fruitful, any and every kind of seed must of necessity have a male and female parent, and the pollen of the latter receive impregnation from the former; just as must the eggs of fowls, fishes, etc., before they can bring forth their chick or spawn. If this idea should be new to any reader, he will find its investigation exceedingly interesting. But, however instructive and philosophical this whole subject, yet, as this work proposes to discuss it as applied to MAN ONLY, these, its other applications, are dismissed with this passing allusion to their existence merely.

REPRODUCTION GOVERNED BY LAW.

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Annihilate

of domestic life, would have had no existence. parentage, and you blot out all the tender yearnings of connubial love, all the fond delights of parental endearment, all the pleasures of infantile and juvenile provision and guardianship, and thus extinguish a cluster of the holiest and happiest emotions mortals can experience; because the latter are only the satellites of the former. But parentage begets all these other tender ties, and thereby contributes incalculably to human virtue and enjoyment in every department of life, as this series of volumes abundantly shows.

303. REPRODUCTION GOVERNED BY LAW.

Nor is this reproductive process left to chance; but in common with every other department of nature, it is governed by IMMUTABLE LAW. All the regularity and uniformity of CAUSATION govern every one of its products, vegetable, animal, and human. But for this uniformity, nothing like GENERA and SPECIES-most convenient arrangements, truly-could have had an existence; and hence some horses might have had feet, others none, and others still, thousands. Some human offspring might have had heads, and hearts, and muscles, others neither, and others again, hundreds; while others still would have been liable to have been brutes, or trees, or stones; whereas, in consequence of this law, they now are CERTAIN to be HUMAN BEINGS, having one common system of anatomical structure and mental elements. But for thus governing parentage by law, some human subjects might have had the faculty of color, others none; some, the elements of justice, reason, appetite, and the like, but been wanting in others; while others again might have omitted the former but possessed the latter, according to fitful chance; so that our mental world would have been a perfect bedlam—“ confusion worse confounded" throughout; whereas, this legal institution bestows on every member of the human family the same number of bones, muscles, limbs, and organs, and the same general appearance, together with more or less of every primary MENTAL element; or in other words, a kindred physical and mental cONSTITUTION.

It also allows a beneficial DIVERSITY of form, stature, character, and capability; some being born with some organs larger, and faculties stronger than others; so that though all have eyes, hands, feet, and the like; and also reason, affection, and all the primitive mental elements, yet no two are exactly alike in shape or character.

304. LIKE BEGETS LIKE.

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This great law is summed up in the great arrangement, that all things shall bring forth "AFTER HIS KIND, cattle, and creeping thing, and beasts of the earth after his kind.' The product of the oak is an acorn, which reproduces another oak, but nothing else; and thus of all seeds, grains, fruits, beasts, and human beings. But for this law of the resemblance of products to their parentage, the farmer might plant corn and reap thorns-might sow stones and raise cattle; and human offspring would be as liable to resemble beasts, or trees, as human beings having fixed characters. But this EACHAFTER-ITS-KIND" institution causes all the generations of herb, tree, and animal, to resemble their first parents, and renders human offspring men and women, and all human beings substantially alike. It causes children to inherit the natures of their parents, and even ALL their constitutional peculiarities. Indeed, the minuteness and accuracy of this transfer is truly astonishing-that same uniformity and certainty obtaining here which is found wherever cause and effect reign supreme.

E

every

That laws of cause and effect govern this department of nature, is too apparent to require labored argument. Unless thus governed, one of the most interesting and important departments of nature is left to chance-a doctrine utterly absurd. Law is indispensable and inviolable 6 543, and nowhere more so than here. Since causation imbodies the best system for the government of nature in general, why should it not also control this, one among its paramount departments? To suppose otherwise "charges God foolishly," and ascribes anarchy to nature in one of her leading departments a supposition as preposterous as contrary to fact. To