HEREDITY IN MAN 369 



gitimacy, pauperism, and criminality arc pitifully frequent. It is 

 obvious that they have been reared under the poorest environ- 

 mental conditions, but no less obvious that their heritage is very 

 deficient; it is doubtful that they would be able to respond ade- 

 quately to the finest of surroundings. 



In writing of this and similar families Holmes sums up their 

 significance in heredity in the following words: "People with good 

 stuff in them very often rise out of their vicious environment, 

 while others under the best of conditions seem to take instinctively 

 to evil pursuits. We should bear in mind in studying degenerate 

 famihes and their unfavorable surroundings, that bad environment 

 tends to be created by a bad heredity. Given stocks with an 

 inheritance of low mentality, feeble inhibitions, and more or less 

 mental disorder, in a few generations such stocks would gradually 

 sink into the ranks of dependent or outcast humanity, and would 

 soon develop traditions of vice and immorality which would make 

 it especially hard for an individual to rise in the social scale. 

 When we consider a single individual born amid such unfavorable 

 surroundings, we might be prone to attribute his shortcomings to 

 his poor opportunities. We might be al)le to point to many cases 

 in which members of degenerate strains have become worthy 

 citizens when given better chances for obtaining success. Such 

 cases, in fact, are not infrequent. But this fact would in no wise 

 controvert the assertion that heredity is primarily responsible for 

 the condition of these degenerate families. Under the conditions 

 that prevail in our civilized society, there is a general tendency 

 for families of good inheritance to rise into higher ranks, whatever 

 misfortunes may have been responsible for their inferior position 

 in the social scale. Families of bad inheritance, although they 

 may be endowed with wealth and social standing, tend after a 

 time to sink into the lower social strata." 



Illustrious Families. After such a depressing picture as the 

 Jukes it is a pleasure to turn to some families of the opposite type. 

 Galton was one of the earhest writers to consider the inheritance 

 of ability, and in his work on Hereditary Genius he shows that 

 there is a striking tendency for th(> reappearance, generation after 

 generation, of high ability in the same line of descent. Superior 

 ability in almost every line of human endeavor has been shown 

 to follow this rule. A particularly appropriate example for such 

 a work as this is the family of Charles Darwin. His grandfather, 



