Hereditary descent : its laws and facts, illustrated and applied to the improvement of mankind : with hints to woman; including directions for forming matrimonial alliances so as to produce, in offspring, whatever physical, mental, or moral qualities may be desired : together with preventives of hereditary tendencies / by O.S. Fowler.

  • Fowler, O. S. (Orson Squire), 1809-1887.
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hereditary descent : its laws and facts, illustrated and applied to the improvement of mankind : with hints to woman; including directions for forming matrimonial alliances so as to produce, in offspring, whatever physical, mental, or moral qualities may be desired : together with preventives of hereditary tendencies / by O.S. Fowler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    HEREDITARY DESCENT. CHAPTER I. THE SUBJECT—ITS IMPORTANCE. SECTION I. THE PROGENY RESEMBLE THEIR PARENTS. •' And God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. Man dies. Animals, trees, vegetables, and all that lives and grows, die, and moulder back to dust. To man, this arrangement or institution of death, is cer- tainly most beneficial. Governed by inflexible laws, every violation of which causes pain, often most excruciating, and continually liable, through ignorance or sinful indulgence, to break them, and thus to induce their dreadful penalty, unless death came to his relief, the augmentation and aggravation of suffering almost certain, in the course of ages, to accumu- late upon him, would render him so inconceivably miserable, as to extort the agonizing prayer that the rocks and the mountains would fall upon him, or that dark oblivion would annihilate soul and body together. From a condition so absolutely horrible, death is our kind deliverer; and instead of being looked upon with dread, is in fact, when it comes in its season, a blessing—a boon equalled only by life itself—an institution planned and ordained by infinite Wisdom and Goodness united, and directed to the highest good of man. It also allows an infinitely greater number of human beings to enjoy the blessings of life, and to prepare themselves for a happy eternity than the earth could otherwise contain, and in every conceivable point of view, converts our earth, other- wise one great field of anguish, into a state highly conducive to happiness.