Sedentary Habits-Mode of obviating Labor-Pains-A vigorous muscu- 156-221 MATERNITY. SECTION I PHYSICAL RELATIONS OF OFFSPRING TO THE MOTHER. 404. MATERNITY is the door through which all that lives enters upon its terrestrial existence. As earth is the common mother of all those endless forms of life within and upon her, so every vegetable, every animal, every human being, has each its own specific mother. Thus the fruit tree is the mother of those seed-bearing fruits which reproduce their kind, while the pulp, or edible portion, is to the seed, what its mother's milk is to the infant animal-a deposite of nutrition, to feed and moisten it till it can take root, so as to sustain independent life. And thus of all berries, nuts, and the seeds of every tree and shrub that grows; while the straw of grains, grasses, weeds, and herbs, are their veritable mothers, and the edible portion of grains and seeds is to the chit, or germ, what the maternal breast is to animal and man. Potatoes, onions, bulbous roots, etc., all have their mothers, and, in turn, become mothers; and thus of all that grows upon the face of the whole earth. EVERY THING MUST HAVE ITS MOTHER. This maternal law likewise governs every species, every individual of the animal kingdom. The female fowl is the mother of the egg, and the fish of the spawn, by which all feathered, all finned, all the reptile tribes, reproduce their kinds; and these eggs and spawn, besides containing the life-germ, likewise embody, in common with fruits, grains, roots, and seeds, a nutritious deposite, in the form of the yolk, to feed the embryo during the process of hatching. All lower forms of life are equally governed by this maternal law. So are all higher. Every individual of all the mammalia tribes -horses, cattle, dogs, lions, tigers, swine, sheep-all four-footed beasts and creeping things, are offsprings of their specific mothers, and, where nature has her perfect work, receive nourishment from her life-giving milk. All human beings, savage and civilized, past, present, and to come, likewise owe their existence to this maternal instrumentality. Who of us all but owes an eternal debt of gratitude to our mother, for, at least, bringing us into the world, if not for nursing and caring for us till able to take care of ourselves? Heathenish wretches they, who neglect their own mother, even though she may abuse them; and let us all cling to and cherish our mothers, with filial piety, nor fail to administer to their every comfort, to our utmost capacity. 405. INTIMACY OF THE RELATIONS OF CHILD TO MOTHER. Nor is it unimportant to the recipient of life, who or what is its mother. On the contrary, "like mother like offspring." That law, " EACH AFTER ITS KIND," So fully explained in Hereditary Descent 304, applies to maternity quite as forcibly as to parentage. Be the mother vegetable, or tree, or creeping thing, or fowl, or brute, or human, what she bears will partake of her structure, THEIR RECIPROCITY. 13 form, and nature, mental and physical, both general and specific. This is a necessary institute of nature. How could it be otherwise? How incongruous for a tree to bear a brute, or a human mother a lion! How wise how promotive of happiness, this law that "like bears like!" Nor does this maternal law of similarity govern the various orders, genera, and species, of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, in their general peculiarities merely. It likewise extends even to all the MINUTIE of their respective characteristics and relations. Not only is the offspring of the human being also human-endowed with all the physical organs and mental elements of humanity in general-but it likewise takes on all those minor shadings and phases which characterize the mother. That same blood which sustains and re-supplies the organs of the mother, forms and nourishes those of her embryo. The blood is the grand instrumentality of all nutrition, of all formation, of universal life. All those materials out of which all parts of the infantile body are formed, are conveyed to their respective places of destination by means of the blood. And since it is the grand messenger and instrumentality of life, as is this blood so is that life which it produces. Now, since the child is formed out of its mother's blood, and since the mother must be like her own blood, and the child like this same blood, of course, mother and child must be alike, because both are like the mother's blood. True, the nature of the father is faithfully represented in the seminal germ, as fully shown in "Love and Parentage," yet the child's partaking of this nature does not prevent its taking on that of the mother likewise. The reception of the paterna nature in no |