82 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



him. With only 20,000 Swedes he attacked 80,000 Kussians under the 

 Czar Peter who were besieging Narva and then, with only 8,000 men, 

 before the arrival of his main army, gave the Kussians such a severe 

 defeat that they were rilled with consternation.* A little later when 

 Peter made overtures for peace he replied that he would 'treat with 

 the Czar at Moscow.' 



Charles was by no means successful in his subsequent battles, but 

 considering the enormous odds against him, this demibarbarian 'whose 

 ambition was madness and whose valor was ferocity' may justly be 

 considered one of the greatest commanders of modern times, as well 

 as one of the most remarkable men who ever lived. Kude, but chaste, 

 frugal in his dress, food and mode of living, he seems to have had few 

 failings save his impetuosity and inordinate ambition. 



Of course such a character as Charles can never be directly derived 

 from any law of heredity like G-alton's. A man who has more of cer- 

 tain characteristics than other men can not be produced by adding 

 together in a proportionate way the same characteristics of his ances- 

 tors. But if these extreme types like Charles, Peter the Great, Don 

 Carlos, son of Philip II., and Frederick the Great occur most fre- 

 quently where there is much of the same sort of character in several 

 of the ancestors, we are better satisfied that the types are the product 

 of hereditary influence, than if they frequently occurred in regions 

 where none of the relatives show the character in question. The wave 

 does not flow back towards the mean for every child or even for every 

 generation. It also flows in an upward swell, and it is only to be 

 expected that variations shall occur that show its highest manifesta- 

 tion where there is already some considerable indication of its pres- 

 ence in the neighborhood of the person in whom it appears in such an 

 extreme degree. 



In referring back to the ancestry we find the character of Charles 

 XII. almost exactly repeated, though in a lesser degree, in both his 

 father and grandfather. They were both active, vigilant, enterprising 

 and warlike, frugal in daily living, but passionate in their temper. 

 There were ambitions or marked talents in nearly all the other ances- 

 tors. His mother was intellectual and virtuous and derived as we have 

 seen from the most able region of Denmark. So, after all, taking into 

 consideration the two sisters of Charles XII., who were nobodies in the 

 intellectual scale, we do not find this fraternity to which he belongs 

 giving us more than is called for. 



We are now brought to the dynasty of Holstein, which in the six 

 characters, numbered from 28 to 33 inclusive, gives us no names that 

 amount to anything; nor am I able to find out anything concerning 

 the apparent nonentities who formed the ancestry and relationship of 



* Lippincott's. 



