108 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



How came it, tlien, ever to be supposed, that nature favors the hered- 

 itary transmission of personal traits of mind, character, and external 

 form. From the popular fallacy, already exposed, which leads the ob- 

 server to fasten upon the few affirmative, to the exclusion of a crowd of 

 negative, instances. The different features of mind and body are very 

 numerous, and every one of them may show likeness or unlikeness with 

 the corresponding feature in the parent. Analyze any case of supposed 

 strong resemblance, and it will be found to consist in one or two fea- 

 tures only, to the exclusion of six or eight others, which are wholly 

 unlike those of the parent. Thus, a strongly marked nose, together 

 with eyes of a peculiar shape and hue, are enough to make out what is 

 called a marked case of family likeness ; though mouth, chin, forehead, 

 complexion, hair, outline of the face, and shape of the head may be as 

 unlike as if they belonged to a stranger by blood ; and though even 

 eyes and nose of the same pattern may be found, almost as often as we 

 choose to look for them, among the community at large. Again, as like- 

 ness to a grandparent is held to prove hereditary transmission just as 

 much as likeness to the immediate parent, and as everybody has at 

 least two parents and four grandparents, there is no cause for wonder, 

 if, among these six progenitors within two generations, a counter[)art 

 should be found for every feature of the offspring, tliough accident, and 

 not inheritance, formed the law of distribution. Foi', excluding mal- 

 formation, there are not more tlian half a dozen varieties of each fea- 

 tui'e which are strongly marked enough to constitute a ground of like- 

 ness. Thus, a nose peculiar enough to be a recognized point of like- 

 ness, and yet not deformed, must be decidedly either aquiline, Roman, 

 Grecian, flat, pug, or a nez retrousse. Here are but six possible forms, 

 and according to the law of chances, we might expect to find a counter- 

 part for any one of them among the six progenitors. It is because re- 

 semblance between pai'ent and offspring is found much less frequently 

 than, accoi'ding to these considerations, we should have a right to ex- 

 pect it, even if the forms were distributed at random, or without any 

 law at all, that we are led to believe the law of nature, if there be one 

 in the case, favors unlikeness rather than resemblance ; or that Nature 

 takes care to vary her work, as she certainly does with the leaves of the 

 same oak-tree, among which you may hunt for hours Avithout finding 

 two whose indented outlines are at all similar. 



But supposed family likeness more frequently consists in the general 

 expression of the countenance, in Avhich respect, a large family often bear 



