HEREDITY OF MENTAL TRAITS 15 



no marked peculiarities are obvious, then there is no 

 opportunity to contrast its absence. Sweden, on 

 the contrary, had, just before and after the time of 

 Gustavus Adolphus, several very remarkable persons 

 in the royal family. These are quite clearly differen- 

 tiated from the mediocre types, though transitions 

 also exist. These transitions naturally exist to con- 

 siderable extent in all families. It is impossible to 

 always satisfactorily estimate, classify, and grade 

 mental and moral differences ; but I believe these 

 transitional individuals are much rarer than is 

 commonly supposed, and my purpose in writing this 

 article is merely to call attention to the universal 

 tendency in mental heredity to give at least a 

 partially perfect alternative inheritance. I have 

 often looked for demonstration of piu-e Mendelian 

 dominance and recession in psychic heredity, but have 

 never found it in the material I possess. It may 

 very likely be that a further splitting up of such 

 rough first approximations and classifications as I 

 have been forced to make will bring to light some 

 unit character that will prove dominant or recessive. 

 It would seem as if the mental qualities were more or 

 less formed into one unit, and certain specific moral 

 types into another, and as if the germ-cells were 

 trying with more or less success to segregate these 

 units. 



The appreciation of the general principle of 

 alternative heredity in human mentality is at least a. 

 valuable consideration, because it is something which 

 environment cannot, we must think, tend to cause,. 



