174 BIOLOGY OF DEATH 



extensive investigations on the inheritance of physical 

 characters in man. 



In Table 20 are given the values of the parental 

 correlations for the four physical characters stature, 

 span, forearm length, and eye color. Now it is obvious 



TABLE 20 



Parental inheritance of physical characters in man. (Pearson) 



that the differences of environmental forces impinging 

 upon the various members of a homogeneous group of 

 middle class English families (from which source the 

 data for these correlations were drawn) can by no pos- 

 sibility be great enough to affect sensibly the stature, the 

 arm-length, or the eye color of the adults of such families. 

 It would be preposterous to assert that the resemblance 

 between parents and offspring in respect of eye color is 

 due solely, or even sensibly, to similarity of environment. 

 It is due to heredity and substantially nothing else. 

 Now the average value of the 16 parental coefficients for 

 the inheritance of physical characters shown in the table is 



r= .4675 



