OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 103 



is certainly true ; and which, at any rate, is not so terrific as that per- 

 version of it, which teaches, that not merely the sins, but the congenital 

 defects and diseases, implanted in us before birth, shall be visited upon 

 our innocent offspring, not for two or three generations only, but for all 

 future time. 



Professor Bowen maintained that the assumed evidence upon which 

 this theory rests is unscientific and unsatisfactory, and can be confronted 

 by a great amount of testimony leading to an opposite conclusion. He 

 began by admitting, or taking for granted, e\evjfact which is commonly 

 adduced in its support, — excluding, of coui'se, such a statement of that 

 . fact as may involve any theory respecting its nature. Thus, it is a fact 

 that insane persons can generally find among their ancestors, or their rela- 

 tives in the ancestral line, one or more persons who also have been insane. 

 The illogical, because hypothetical, statement of this fact is, that the 

 former inherited their insanity from the latter. It is also a fact, that 

 children often bear a certain measure of resemblance, in body, mind, or 

 chai'acter, to their parents or grandparents ; and the hypothetical state- 

 ment of this fact is, that they have inherited these traits. 



Now, one of three suppositions must be true; — either, 1. there is a law 

 of nature that bodily and mental peculiarities shall be transmitted by 

 inheritance ; or, 2. there is a law that they shall not be so transmitted ; 

 or, 3. there is no law about the matter, and it is mere accident whether 

 parental or ancestral peculiarities reappear in the offspring or not. The 

 physiological fatalists maintain the first of these suppositions ; Professor 

 Bowen said he believed the second ; but, as against the fatalists, it is 

 enough to substantiate by satisfactory evidence the third. 



The mistake of those who favor the doctrine of hereditary descent 

 arises from the common error, — an Idol of the Tribe, as Bacon calls 

 it, — which consists in regarding only the affirmative cases ; " and 

 though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found 

 on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or by some 

 distinction sets aside and rejects." " Such is the way of all supersti- 

 tion," Bacon continues ; " but with far greater subtilty does this mischief 



insinuate itself into philosophy and the sciences It is the peculiar 



and perpetual error of the human intellect, to be more moved and ex- 

 cited by affirmatives than by negatives ; whereas, it ought properly to 

 hold itself indifferently disposed towards both alike. Indeed, in the 

 establishment of any true law of nature, the negative instance is the 

 more forcible of the two." Dr. Johnson pithily described this popular 



