But this is not the case. Nature's Law
prescribes two antagonistic decrees affecting Circular propagation;
first, that as the race climbs higher in the scale of development,
so development shall proceed at an accelerated pace; second,
that in the same proportion, the race shall become less fertile.
Consequently in the home of a Polygon of four or five hundred sides
it is rare to find a son; more than one is never seen. On the other
hand the son of a five-hundred-sided Polygon has been known to possess
five hundred and fifty, or even six hundred sides.
Art also steps in to help the process of higher Evolution.
Our physicians have discovered that the small and tender sides
of an infant Polygon of the higher class can be fractured, and his whole
frame re-set, with such exactness that a Polygon of two or three
hundred sides sometimes--by no means always, for the process
is attended with serious risk--but sometimes overleaps two or three
hundred generations, and as it were double at a stroke, the number
of his progenitors and the nobility of his descent.
Many a promising child is sacrificed in this way.
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