consequences.

What parents have to realize is the necessity of so training and instructing their children that they may become capable of being the parents of perfect offspring. The good tree only can bear good fruit. But this is not the real starting point of stirpiculture. An essential factor, and one that is seldom thought of, is the spirit in which the inception of offspring is undertaken. Marriage was to the ancients a sacred state, because it was associated with the religion of the domestic altar, and because the perpetuation of the family, which was its aim, was required by the necessity of having a son to perform the sacred rites at that altar after the death of his father. The perpetuation of the family was thus a sacred duty, and the consummation of marriage partook of this character. According to the ancient Persian religion, the union of man and woman is the act most agreeable to God, and the act of consummation is directed to be sanctified, and a prayer directed to God that He would bless it. Marriage must be conducted in this spirit, rather than as a means of gratifying the passions, if the happiest results are to be obtained from the application of the principle of sexual selection.

Spiritual Sympathy in Marriage.—That supposes, however, the existence of spiritual sympathy between those who are united in marriage, and this sympathy must form the true basis of all improvements in the race. It was the neglect of this feature, the want of which must render any attempt to carry out Plato's ideas on the subject of marriage futile, that put a stop to the experiments undertaken by his latest imitator, Noyes. His adherents simply made a return to the monogamy which is the heritage of all the Aryan peoples, and which is based on the union of two hearts, and not merely of two persons. This is the first application of the principle of sexual selection above the animal plane, and it must be continued notwithstanding that the range of selection is extended so as to embrace also the intellectual and moral planes.