110 PROCEEDIDGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



wliere he became more pliant. But how many other points of resem- 

 blance can be found in the succession of Stuart kings ? Compare the 

 first of them who sat on an English throne, the slobbering, pedantic, 

 cowardly, fondling James L, with his grave, decorous, and melancholy 

 son, treacherous as a prince, but I'igidly moral as a man, and dying at 

 last the death of a martyr and a saint. Or compare this martyr-king 

 with his good-for-nothing though good-natured son, Charles II., or the 

 latter with his brother, the stupid and cruel bigot, James II. Only in 

 " the good Queen Anne," as she was sometimes called, weak and preju- 

 diced, but motherly and fondling, and much under the influence of 

 favorites, do we find a reproduction of some characteristic traits of her 

 great-grandfather James I. Take any other line of European kings, 

 and as great diversities of character and ability may be found among 

 them as among the Stuarts. On the whole, the doctrine of the heredi- 

 tary transmission of mind and character may be said to be contradicted 

 by all history, as well as by every day's experience. 



The President, Dr. Bigelow, remarked that undoubtedly 

 many of the errors in science, and still more in popular belief, 

 arose from hasty generalization, and the acceptance of a few 

 striking or remarkable facts, to the exclusion of a greater 

 number of common negative or uninteresting facts, thus estab- 

 lishing as general rules things which were only exceptions to 

 such rules. The medical profession, however, were agreed, as 

 the result of general observation, that although most diseases 

 terminate with the individual, yet that certain peculiarities, not 

 only of bodily structure, but of tendency to disease, are trans- 

 missible by inheritance. Thus a sixth finger, near-sightedness, 

 squinting, and peculiarities of comjilexion, features, and stat- 

 ure, are more or less transmissible from one generation to 

 another. So also, among diseases, consumption, scrofula, gout, 

 some eruptive complaints, nervous affections, and, to a certain 

 extent, carcinoma, apoplexy, and insanity. The hereditary 

 predisposition is most marked when both parents are subjects 

 of the peculiarity or disease. Dr. Bigelow cited some cases in 

 which, both parents having been affected with a disease, all the 

 children had eventually died of the same disease. If procrea- 

 tion could be regulated by authority, he did not see why the 



