166 Heredity. [April, 
The author handles the heredity of the imagination and 
that of the intellect in two distin sections. Under the 
former he gives the genealogies of poets, painters, and mu- 
sicians; and under the latter men of science and prose 
authors, even novelists. This arrangement seems to us ob- 
jectionable. The gifts requisite to produce a prose work of 
filion are surely more akin to the faculties of the poet than 
to those of the mathematician, even although the imagina- 
tion plays no unimportant part in scientific discoveries. It 
is interesting that, in treating of painters and musicians, 
M. Ribot recognises—implicitly at least—that speciality of 
talent which he overlooks among philosophers. With 
scarcely an exception, when tracing the lineage of artists 
and musicians, he enumerates those only of their kindred 
who were themselves artists or musicians. 
Into the interesting and suggestive chapters on the rela- 
tion between the physical and the moral,—on heredity in 
connection with the law of evolution, and on its psycholo- 
gical, moral, and social consequences,—we must, though 
with reluctance, abstain from entering. ‘To two, however, 
of the practical applications of the truths brought forward 
by Mr. Galton and M. Ribot, we will briefly call attention. 
The do@trine of Heredity throws a needful light upon the 
question of national education. What shall we gain by 
catching every little boy or girl and consigning him or her 
to school, whether “‘ Board” or denominational? Some of 
us, especially the neophytes of the movement, expect too 
much. It was held by Helvetius, in accordance with the 
revolutionary hypothesis of universal equality, that the 
differences, intellectual or moral, between man and man 
were simply due to early training. It was believed that 
genius could be raised to order, and the market supplied 
with original thinkers as easily as with early peas or hot- 
house grapes. Nor has this delusion totally disappeared. 
M. Ribot, as a matter of course, sees that the power of the 
schoolmaster over the raw material put into his hands is 
stri€tly limited. The mind of the child has been likened to 
a blank sheet of paper, but it is paper upon which certain 
characters may be traced with readiness, others with diffi- 
culty, and others, again, not at all. Or if we adopt the 
Socratic view, that the educator is like a sculptor who cuts 
out a beautiful statue from the crude block, we may say that 
every such block has a determined cleavage, which limits 
him, in each case, to the production of a certain class of 
forms. M. Ribot maintains that upon minds of the highest 
and lowest classes the influence of circumstances in general, 
