VIRILE SENTIMENT 101 



If now we take a general survey of all the cases 

 which we have considered, we shall agree, I think, 

 that the evidence is pretty clear in regard to some of 

 the qualities of man that there is segregation in their 

 hereditary transmission from generation to genera- 

 tion. There is reason to believe that future investi- 

 gation will widen the number of human characters 

 which so behave. There is no reason to believe that 

 the mental and moral qualities of man are trans- 

 mitted in any way different from the physical 

 characters. Indeed, the evidence indicates that they 

 are hereditarily handed down in the same way that 

 the physical ones are. Without citing more recently- 

 investigated cases, it will suffice to point out that it 

 is a historically-known fact that the eloquence of 

 Marcus Antonious was a hereditary gift, and that 

 the high ability of Brutus' family extended through 

 many generations, and was manifested in the dis- 

 charge of the duties of the many great posts which 

 that family occupied during successive genera- 

 tions. 



If, then, it shall be ultimately shown that segre- 

 gation of alternative characters and gametic purity 

 is the rule of man's hereditary processes — if the clear 

 indications of the limited cases already known become 

 a generalised expression of a general process — and 

 justify us in saying that segregation and gametic 

 purity express a natural law of man's heredity, what 

 bearing will this have upon all social questions and 

 upon questions of even wider moment ? 



Looking over the cases which we have already 



