428 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



because it has seemed to the author to be profitless in view of the 

 approximate equality of the instances pro and con. 



The above estimates for the characteristics of offspring are in 

 accordance with Galton's law of ancestral heredity, except that pro- 

 vision is made for the fact that mental and moral qualities do not 

 freely blend, so that a child is apt to 'take after' pretty completely 

 some one of his ancestors, more often the near one, less and. less often 

 the remote one, until the chances of reversion to a very distant one are 

 exceedingly slight. 



Once in a large number of times occurs one of those fortuitous* 

 combinations of ancestral qualities that is destined to make a person 

 inheriting them vary much from any of his kind, and in fortunate 

 instances shine as a genius, springing from a mediocre stock. The 

 figures drawn from Lehr 's ' Genealogy ' were about one in five hundred 

 for this sort of occurrence. 



At this point it may be well to consider a popular misconception 

 concerning the value of hereditary influence a mistake very frequently 

 made. Many people argue that great geniuses, coming as they fre- 

 quently do from humble families, Franklin and Lincoln for instance, 

 discount our belief in mental heredity; when, on the other hand, 

 these men should only strengthen our reliance in this same force. 

 We should consider the thousands, indeed millions, of mediocrities, who 

 have to be born from mediocrities, before one mind of the type of 

 Franklin's is produced. 



That they rise superior to their circumstances is in itself a proof 

 of the inborn nature of their minds and characters. A man of this 

 sort represesents just the combination of the best from many ancestors. 

 It would be possible in a great many throws to cast a large number of 

 dice so that they would all fall aces. But here in certain regions of 

 royalty as among the Montmorencys and Hohenzollerns where the dice 

 are loaded, such a result may be expected in a large percentage of throws. 



* It is to be remembered that when we speak of chance as a cause of 

 the combinations of characteristics, that even the throwing of dice or pitching 

 of pennies is entirely subject to the laws of mathematics, as has been abun- 

 dantly proved by experiments. (Conf., K. Pearson, ' Chances of Death,' etc.) 



