HEREDITY OF MENTAL TRAITS 7 



No pedigrees are better preserved than those of 

 Royalty, the names and dates being quite complete. 

 As I have elsewhere offered proof of the essential 

 validity and general utility of the historical and bio- 

 graphical materials,* I will cite some instances to 

 prove how frequently a peculiar or exceptional 

 mentality shows its presence in one member of the 

 family while its absence is found in the very close of 

 kin. 



The House of Hanover had a sprinkling of 

 pleasure-loving and dissipated princes, but the 

 majority were quiet and domestic. Frederick Prince 

 of Wales, Frederick Henry Duke of Cumberland, and 

 Edward Duke of York, and Frederick Duke of York 

 resembled George IV. in this particular, and in their 

 moral nature stood in sharp contrast to George III., 

 William Henry Duke of Gloucester, Edward Duke 

 of Kent, and Adolphus Duke of Cambridge. 



The Hohenzollerns in Prussia have had among their 

 number a few men and women of remarkable mental 

 endowments, and these also well illustrate the action 

 of alternative inheritance, the genius springing appa- 

 rently from the Houses of Orange and Coligny with 

 Montmorency in the background (see Pedigree). This 

 first appeared in the Great Elector of Brandenburg, a 

 son of Elizabeth of the Palatinate, who was one of 

 the thirty-two grandchildren of William the Silent — 

 four only of whom had shown the family genius. The 

 parents of the Great Elector were neither of them 



* " Heredity in Royalty," Henry Holt, New York, 1906, and " His- 

 toriometry as an Exact Science," " Science," New York, April 14th, 1911. 



