When, on the one hand, we see domesticated animals and plants, though often weak and sickly, yet breeding quite freely under confinement; and when, on the other hand, we see individuals, though taken young from a state of nature, perfectly tamed, long-lived, and healthy (of which I could give numerous instances), yet having their reproductive system so seriously affected by unperceived causes as to fail in acting, we need not be surprised at this system, when it does act under confinement, acting not quite regularly, and producing offspring not perfectly like their parents or variable.
Seedlings from the same fruit, and the young of the same litter, sometimes differ considerably from each other, though both the young and the parents, as Muller has remarked, have apparently been exposed to exactly the same conditions of life; and this shows how unimportant the direct effects of the conditions of life are in comparison with the laws of reproduction, and of growth, and of inheritance; for had the action of the conditions been direct, if any of the young had varied, all would probably have varied in the same manner.
It has often been loosely said that all our races of dogs have been produced by the crossing of a few aboriginal species; but by crossing we can get only forms in some degree intermediate between their parents; and if we account for our several domestic races by this process, we must admit the former existence of the most extreme forms, as the Italian greyhound, bloodhound, bull-dog, in the wild state.
I remember well how sad and dreary those days and hours were to me; I remember well how I began to doubt as they went by, and even to lose confidence in the faith of Don Fernando; and I remember, too, how my maid heard those words in reproof of her audacity that she had not heard before, and how I was forced to put a constraint on my tears and on the expression of my countenance, not to give my parents cause to ask me why I was so melancholy, and drive me to invent falsehoods in reply.
I reached my destination in two days and a half, and on entering the city inquired for the house of Luscinda's parents. The first person I asked gave me more in reply than I sought to know; he showed me the house, and told me all that had occurred at the betrothal of the daughter of the family, an affair of such notoriety in the city that it was the talk of every knot of idlers in the street.
Convenience as regarded afternoon callers was the last thing to enter into the consideration of unselfish Mr and Mrs Clare; though the three sons were sufficiently in unison on this matter to wish that their parents would conform a little to modern notions.
But neither of the old people had arrived, and it was not till the sons were almost tired of waiting that their parents entered.
He felt that his parents were right in their practice if wrong in their want of sentiment, and said no more.
That was all I knew of Nicolete's
parents, and all I needed to know; with the exception of one good action,--at her urgent entreaty they had left Nicolete behind them, with no other safeguard than a charming young lady companion, whose fitness for her sacred duties consisted in a temperament hardly less romantic and whimsical than Nicolete's own.
Before the curriculum team adopted new materials, such as videos and written material, Anderson got a call from the
parent, pushing for more say in the program.
In providing evidence of the independent effect of early nonsexual relationships on subsequent early onset of sexual intercourse, Mat-ing findings suggest that such a focus could be one of the missing pieces in both youth and
parent interventions.
Research targeting other diverse groups of
parents and their youths/adolescents is also encouraged (e.g., sexual orientation, religious background, single-parent families).