MENTAL AND MORAL HEREDITY IN ROYALTY. 455 



introduced in the pedigree. In this respect these countries should be 

 compared with Bussia, Spain, France and Italy. 



Frederick the Great and his brother Henry left no descendants. In 

 the next generation the great qualities died out in the house, because 

 only two of the males had heirs and these were not the gifted members 

 of the family. One, William Augustus, was weak and fond of pleasure, 

 and was the son who resembled his grandfather, Frederick I. He mar- 

 ried Louisa, a daughter of Ferdinand Albert, of Brunswick, an insipid 

 woman of no gifts, with an ancestry virtuous and literary, but not 

 talented politically.* They had a son, Frederick William II., and a 

 daughter; the son, who had the best of education and example, was a 

 virtuous man of average capacity, but timid and irresolute. As 

 Frederick William II., who was not brilliant, married a woman below 

 the average capacity and of a mediocre family, by the next generation 

 ail brilliancy was removed to one great-great-grandparent, out of the 

 sixteen the children had, and to eight of the thirty-two great-great- 

 great-grandparents; which according to Galton would be a factor of 

 extremely small value; so it is not surprising that it never caine out 

 again in this line, unless Wilhelm der Grosse and the present Kaiser be 

 equal to them and represent extreme reversion. Their abilities are 

 probably derived from fresh combinations. 



Among the collaterals similar dilution, or lack of any issue at all, 

 can be shown. Thus one of the greatest strains of intellect the world 

 has ever seen finally disappeared. Quite unconsciously on their part it 

 was formed. Its formation appears to be due to a remarkable combina- 

 tion of ingredients of blood, three sources of the best from the great 

 House of Orange were united with the Great Elector of Brandenburg, 

 who probably himself received his genius from the house of Orange. Its 

 disappearance might well have been due to dilution in some branches, 

 to accident or sterility in others. Probably the only strain in modern 

 times, in royalty or out, that can show such a quantity of eminent rela- 

 tionship, and of such a high degree, is the same region about William 

 the Silent that we have shown we consider the origin of this. The rela- 

 tion of this blood to the course of Prussian, German and even to the 

 world's history should not be overlooked. 



If it is accepted that these characters were what they were owing 

 largely to heredity, then it follows that Prussia's rise under the Great 

 Elector, her growth under Frederick William I.'s vigorous policy, and 

 subsequent greater growth under Frederick II., together with the seven 

 years' war, must, since historians all ascribe great influence to these 

 sovereigns, find their ultimate explanation in these charts of descent. 

 The theories of heredity appear to be very nearly satisfied. If we con- 



* See Brunswick. 



