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SCIENCE PROGRESS 



which freely translated means he resembled his father in stature 

 and energy and his mother in his poetic imagination ; yet his 

 son had none of his father's genius and is spoken of as the son 

 of the maid-servant. The greatest and best of all the Roman 

 Emperors, Marcus Aurelius, says, "To the gods I am indebted 

 for having good grandparents, good parents, a good sister, good 

 teachers, good associates, good kinsmen and friends ; nearly 

 everything good." Yet this man who practised the noble 

 precepts he taught begot the infamous Commodus, one of the 



Charles the Bold. 

 MAKr BuRCUNBt 



5 I ' 3fAlf» 



Fig. 6. 



worst of the Roman Emperors. That Commodus was the son 

 of Marcus Aurelius is shown by their physical resemblance, 

 and not the son of a gladiator, as some have asserted, by the 

 licentious Faustina the Empress. As it is stated that in spite 

 of careful bringing up he early evinced depraved tastes, it is 

 probable that he inherited his temperament from his mother, as 

 he certainly did his bodily form from his father. 



Perhaps one of the most striking facts of heredity in history 

 is the Spanish Succession, of which I will show an illustrative 

 pedigree on the screen (fig. 6). It shows an hereditary neuropathic 



