378 



On the Laios of Inheritance in Man 



errors — for each character is to be nuted in the first place. Considering that the 

 nieasurements are niade on more than 4000 individuals of different sexes in more 

 than 1000 families, the conviction is complete that these numbers correspond to a 



TABLE IV. 

 Coefficients of Heredity. Parents and Offspring. 



reality in nature. From them we niay safcly draw the following conclusions for 

 the Organs examined : 



(a) The son and daughter are equaliy infliienced by their father, and equally 

 influenced by their inother. 



Wliile a chauge of sex does appear to weaken hercditary influence in the eye- 

 colour of man*, it does not appear to have any perceptible influence on the size of 

 the human fiame. 



(b) In their influence on offspring there is no average prepotenc)' of either 

 father or mother, whatever there may be in individual cases. 



(c) The inheritance of all characters does not appear to be the sanie. 



The inheritance of forearm is for all four cases sensibly less than the inheritance 

 of span, and that of span less than that of stature. We might as a probability 

 put forward the following statement for further investigation. 



{d) The more complex a character the greater the intensity of hereditary 

 resemblance. 



The fact that the correlation falls below h with the simplicity of the character 

 under consideration seems to suggest, however, that the reduction of the intensity 

 cannot be due to an "alternative inheritance" in the case of the simple components 

 of the characterf. 



For the mean values we have the following results : 



Mean parental inheritance, father to son : "463 



„ „ „ „ to daughter: ^462 



„ „ „ mother to son : "452 



„ „ „ „ to daughter: 460 



Mean parental inheritance for both sexes and all characters : 460. 



• Biometrika, Vol. ii. pp. "il^?— 240. 



■\- See Ii. S. Prue. Vol. GC, p. 14'2, and Natural Inheritance, p. 139. 



