404 



The Journal of Heredity 



The only other age known is that of the 

 paternal grandfather, 33. Here again, 

 so far as the recorded facts allow one to 

 judge, Mr. Redfield's hypothesis does 

 not appear to fit. 



NAPOLEON BONAPARTE 



Thanks to the assiduity of hero- 

 worshippers, the genealogy of the first 

 Napoleon has been well established,^^ 

 at least up to the time when the family 

 moved from Italy to Corsica. Not 

 enough of the dates are known to bring 

 it within the scope of Mr. Redfield's 

 offer; but enough of the dates are 

 known to furnish very strong evidence 

 against Mr. Redfield's hypothesis. At 

 the time of Napoleon's birth in 1769, 

 his father was 23 and his mother 19. 

 The maternal grand])arents were prob- 

 ably both 27, and the maternal great- 

 grandfather 26. Going back in the 

 tail-male from Napoleon's own father, 

 the ages are 33, 30, 30, 20, 26 and 34, 

 the latter being that of Sebastiano 

 Bonaparte, who was bom in 1603 and 

 married Maria Rustelli in 1630. While 

 these figures cover only a part of the 

 ancestry, the dates of marriage of 

 some of the other persons in the j^edi- 

 gree give reason to suppose that they 

 represent the general average. Whether 

 or not one whole-heartedly admires 

 Napoleon, one cannot deny his tremen- 

 dous talents ; and these talents cannot be 

 ex])lained by Mr. Redfield's hyjjothcsis. 

 They fit in well with the accejjted views 

 of heredity, however, for the Bonaparte 

 family was one of noble origin, and in 

 every generation had shown ability. 



Turquan found the average genera- 

 tion in the male line, in Corsica, to be 

 35 years, in the female line 31. It is 

 thus evident that, in modern times at 

 any rate, the island is not conspicuous 

 for early marriages, a fact which makes 

 the ancestry of Napoleon all the more 

 striking. 



SOME OTHER CASES 



Five generations in the tail-male of 

 Julius Caesar's ancestry ai)])arently 

 represent an a\'crage of 29 years each. 



The only date known in the ancestry of 

 H. Helmholtz, who had as great an 

 intellect as was ever made in Germany, 

 is that of the father, who was 29 when 

 his son was born. Leonardo da Vinci, 

 born in 1452, was the son of a 25 year- 

 old law student and a peasant girl. 

 Five generations of ascent in the male 

 line of Charlemagne's jDedigree show 

 an average of 33 years. Christopher 

 Columbus' father was 25 at the time 

 the explorer was born. But jjcrhaps 

 no case is more surprising than that of 

 John Napier, inventor of logarithms 

 and a man of immense mental ca]3acity, 

 whose father was 1 7 and grandfather 24. 



Pedigrees such as have been cited 

 above are at least enough to make one 

 feel that Mr. Redfield's hypothesis has 

 many difficulties to overcome before 

 acceptance. But none of the i^edigrees 

 mentioned was submitted in such form 

 as to meet the requirements laid down 

 by Mr. Redfield in sections 1 and 2 of 

 his offer. 



Of course, the cases just enumerated 

 are selected cases. It is not intended 

 here to deny that great men are most 

 likeh' to come from families where 

 marriage has been later than the 

 average. These selected cases are pre- 

 sented to show that Mr. Redfield's 

 claim that great men cannot come from 

 any other kind of family rests on an 

 insecure basis. He has n-ever attempted 

 to justify his hypothesis by the only 

 method which wovild test it — namely, 

 by an investigation of the order of 

 birth of sons in the same family, to 

 ascertain whether the later-born more 

 frequently attain greatness than do 

 the carlier-bom. 



The production of great men from 

 late marriages is quite what would be 

 ex])ected. on any hypothesis of heredity. 

 Great men usually come from families 

 which have more than ordinary intellect, 

 and in such families, marriage is regu- 

 larly postponed beyond the average of 

 the race, because of economic and 

 social reasons. 



The question of educational influences 

 likewise needs, among others, to be 



" See Le Nid de VAigle by Colonna de Cesare Rocca; and Memoires stir I'enfance el la jeuncsse 

 de Napoleon, par TahW T. Nasica (Paris, 1852). The author was jugc d'instruccion in Ajaccio 

 1821-9, where he collected the material for his work. 



