CHAPTER IV. 

 BASIS OF INVESTIGATION, CONTINUED. 



In investigating the origin of great men, the first noticeable 

 thing is that they are usually sons of prominent men. At this 

 point investigators, knowing the facts of inheritance, jump to the 

 conclusion that superior men are produced only from superior an- 

 cestry and inferior men only from inferior ancestry, irrespective of 

 the fact that both had common ancestors some generations back. 

 This common ancestry of superior and inferior men is well shown in 

 the cases of Cromwell and Charles I, who were distant cousins. Of 

 course there is the explanation that the remote ancestor is repre- 

 sented in a very small measure in the two descendants, that on one 

 side there were intermarriages with superior, and on the other side 

 with inferior persons, and that spontaneous variations in the germ 

 cells made up the difference. As there is no evidence that the col- 

 lateral branch going to Cromwell married persons superior to 

 those which the royal line secured, we have assumption upon as- 

 sumption made necessary by deduction from an elaborate theory re- 

 garding mysterious occurrences in the germ cells. 



USE AND DISUSE DEFINED. 



The word use, in a biological sense, means an amount of use 

 greater than enough to bring an individual to, and maintain it at, 

 the average functional capacity of the race or species to which it 

 belongs; while the word disuse means an amount of use less than 

 enough to bring the individual to, and maintain it at, such a stan- 

 dard. Use and disuse are, therefore, relative and not absolute terms. 



74 



