and this he does with positive certainty, unless the mother possesses
opposite qualities and properties. The children of the vicious are by
nature more vicious than the children of the virtuous. Hence, we see
that men by ordinary generation, transmit their own peculiar vices to
their offspring. Every innate principle, passion and propensity of
soul, body and mind, is transmitted from parent to child. This view of
the subject need strike us with no surprise, if we would reflect, that
men beget the souls, as well as the bodies of their children. I read
in Genesis, that God breathed into Adam's nostrils the breath of life,
"and that he became a living soul;" but I am not aware, that the
Divine Being has breathed a soul into any other living being since the
day he created Adam. No! When he breathed a soul into Adam he invested
him with the power to procreate the souls as well as the bodies of his
progeny. Hence, every man begets a soul and a body like his own,
except so far as his own qualities and properties come in contact with
opposite ones in the female; then, of course, some modification of the
foetus may be expected. If an acid and an alkali are brought in
contact, the result will be a neutral salt. We will generally find,
however, that in what are called neutral mixtures, there is either a
predominance of the acid, or the alkali. So it is with the children of
parents possessing opposite propensities and qualities, either those
of the father or the mother, are likely to predominate in the
offspring.

Slavery was entailed on Ham's posterity, in consequence of the
indignity with which he treated his aged and pious father. Ham was a
free agent; it was an act of his own. The Divine Being suffered him to
transgress his laws; and foreseeing that it would involve his
posterity in the curse of slavery, he foretold the result of the
transgression, by the mouth of Noah, Ham's father.