378 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



It is a delusion to suppose that one man living seven or eight hun- 

 dred years ago was one's ancestor to the exclusion of all the rest of 

 the people living at that time in the country, and still having descend- 

 ants in it. We have sprung from the whole mass ; they were all our 

 direct ancestors ; we are vitally related to them all, directly descended 

 from them all. Heraldry follows only one line of succession, the line 

 of the eldest surviving son, the line that carries name and title and 

 landed property. It is commonly imagined that one standing in this 

 line of succession is more truly a descendant than other descendants. 

 It is supposed that the eldest sons all the way are more truly descend- 

 ants than the progeny of younger sons, or the posterity of daughters 

 ■who have lost the very name. But each line of descent, whether by 

 younger sons or by daughters, is just as real and as close as the one 

 termed lineal agnatic. Every ancestor living TOO years ago has con- 

 tributed as truly to the vitality of a present representative as the one 

 whose name he bears, and whose peculiarly direct descendant he is 

 considered to be. 



It is morally certain, then, that all Englishmen of this generation 

 are descendants of William the Conqueror and of Alfred the Great, 

 and all the nobles of their times whose posterity have not died out. 

 When we read in history of a brave deed done by an Englishman 

 seven centuries since or more, we may say with confidence it was done 

 by one of our fore-elders. And, when we read of one at that distant 

 period who was a dishonor to his country, we may say with certainty 

 he also was one of our ancestors. All the lords, princes, and sover- 

 eigns, all the wise and good, the moral and intellectual aristocracy, 

 were our forefathers, and M'C are their children by direct descent. 

 Equally all the toiling myriads, without distinction of any kind, all the 

 beggars and vagabonds, all the villains and scoundrels, were our fore- 

 fathers, whoever we may boast ourselves to be, if, indeed, they have 

 left descendants in the land. We are of them, and their blood circu- 

 lates in our veins. 



If the fact of our equal descent from so many ancestors be doubted, 

 let the matter be tested arithmetically within the circle of two or three 

 generations. The grandmother on the mother's side was equally my 

 ancestor with the grandfather on the fathei-'s side. She was one of 

 four ancestors that I had in the second generation, and owns a full 

 quarter of me. The great-grandmother on the mother's side is equally 

 an ancestor with the great-grandfather on the father's side. She was 

 one of eight ancestors that I had in the third generation, and claims a 

 full eighth of me. Similarly all standing on the successive steps of 

 genealogical descent, and whose number is seen to be doubled at every 

 step as we rise from the lowest upward, stand on the same level, and 

 have equal claim to ownership in those coming after them. 



Some deduction has doubtless to be made from the above rule on 

 account of the recurrence, to a certain extent, of the same lines of de- 



