MENTAL AND MORAL HEREDITY IN ROYALTY. 267 



of his conduct during his visit to England, giving the positive im- 

 pression that he was a degenerate of the worst type. He would be 

 in just the place we might expect to find him, if he belonged among 

 the older Eomanhofs or modern Bourbons, yet there is none of this 

 blood in him, nor is there any other equally bad. Christian VII. was 

 a grandson of George II., and whether he got his bad qualities from 

 him it is impossible to say. If he did he was certainly a great deal 

 worse than George and much feebler intellectually. It is interesting 

 in connection with heredity to note that Christian VII. was a first 

 cousin of George III. who was insane, and also the first cousin, once 

 removed, of the two imbecile sons of Augusta Princess of Brunswick, 

 sister of George III. 



Another more convincing bit of evidence in this connection is to 

 be found in the neighboring House of Hesse Cassel; here we find 

 another first cousin, once removed, of Christian VII., who became 

 insane and died in early manhood. The observation that this man 

 Christian, son of Charles of Hesse Cassel, is doubly descended from 

 the suspected strain (Palatine House) makes it almost certain that 

 we are dealing with an inherited insanity in all cases. Both the 

 mother and father of this Christian of Hesse were grandchildren of 

 George II., and consequently from the Palatine House. I almost 

 forgot to mention Frederick William I., of Prussia, about whom 

 Macaulay said, 'His eccentricities were such as had never been seen 

 out of a mad house.' Frederick William was a first cousin of George 

 II. and stands as near the actual Palatine insanity as a nephew. 



These six cases would, if occurring in families of ordinary social 

 grades, be sent to asylums and never make their way into the records 

 as showing a congenital tendency. Since they stand apart from the 

 other regions of neurosis such as the Spanish, Eussian and modern 

 Bavarian groups, at first we might suspect nothing, but here where 

 we have the family tree and can look up the ancestry, curiously enough 

 we find all related, and through the same source (Palatine) and this 

 the only one of their many lines of descent in which there was insanity. 



It should be noticed that the percentages for heredity among the 

 insane run from 20 to 90, according to the observer, and this should 

 make us think that the higher rather than the lower figures are more 

 likely to be correct. 



Besides this evidence we may mention the following facts: that 

 the uncle of Christian VII., the Duke of Cumberland, was extremely 

 cruel, and his other uncle, Frederick, Prince of Wales, was a dissolute 

 specimen and William IV. of England was eccentric to say the least. 

 Whatever we may say for hereditary influence, at any rate the bring- 

 ing up of Christian VII. was pretty bad. He was in the hands of 

 his step-mother, Juliana Maria of Brunswick, who is said to have used 



