HALL OF FAME MEN. 



95 



ancestry of Henry Ward Beecher gives a plain explanation of his 

 great mental ability, while if we deny use-inheritance, then there 

 is no explanation and we have to simply assume that in some mys- 

 terious manner there was a series of advantageous variations. In 

 running through the female ancestry, we find Henry's mother, 

 Roxanna Foote, as born in class c from her father, who was edu- 

 cated as a lawyer. If we assume that 

 Foote's wife, Roxanna Ward, was two 

 years younger than her husband, then 

 there would be eighty years between 

 her and her grandfather, Colonel An- 

 drew Ward, which we may divide by 

 placing General Ward in class C and 

 Roxanna in class B. Tabulating the 

 ancestry of Beecher as far as known 

 and estimated, and making a diagram 

 we have that shown in Fig. 4. 



Here we see that while there is a 

 birth in each of the classes A and B, 

 there is none in either of the corre- 

 sponding classes of a or b; and in the 

 classes c and d there is one each, while 

 in classes C and D there are three each. On the law of probabilities 

 these births should be distributed pretty evenly each side of the 

 central dividing line, while as a matter of fact we have nine on the 

 older side and three on the younger side. 



OMITTED PERSONS. 



It was my original intention to carry out this investigation for 

 each person as completely as I have done for Beecher, but I soon 



FIG. 4 ANCESTRY OP H. W. 

 BEECHER. 



