HEREDITY IN PHYSIOLOGY, IN MEDICINE, ETC. 333 



children, fifteen of whom were boys. The son and the 

 grandson of the great Conde counted nineteen children in 

 their two families, and their great-grandfather, killed at 

 Jarnac, had ten. The first four Guises counted together 

 forty-three children, thirty of them boys. Achille de 

 Harlay, father of the first President de Harlay, had nine 

 children, his father ten, his great-grandfather eighteen. In 

 some families this fertility persisted for five or six genera- 

 tions. The mean length of human life depends on locali- 

 ties, food, state of civilization, but individual longevity 

 seems to be wholly independent of these conditions. It is 

 remarked among those who lead lives of the hardest toil, 

 as well as among those who take the greatest care of their 

 health, and it seems to depend upon some inward potency 

 of vitality received by individuals from their ancestors. 

 This is so well understood that, in England, life-insurance 

 companies require from their agents full reports as to the 

 longevity of the ancestors of applicants. In the family of 

 Turgot the age of fifty-nine years was seldom outlived, and 

 the man who has given lustre to its name, on the day he 

 reached his fiftieth year, felt a presentiment that the end of 

 his life was not far off. Notwithstanding his appearance 

 of perfectly good health, and his extremely vigorous con- 

 stitution, from that time he held himself in readiness for 

 death, and he did in fact die at the age of fifty-three. 



Heredity often transmits muscular strength, and vari- 

 ous other motive energies. Antiquity had its families of 

 athletes. The English have their families of boxers. The 

 late inquiries of Mr. Galton on the subject of wrestlers and 

 racing-crews, prove that the victors in the contests in 

 which these men take part usually belong to a small num- 

 ber of families in which skill and agility come by descent. 

 Suppleness and grace in dancing movements are transmit- 

 ted, too, as the famous family of the Vestris witnesses. It 

 is the same with different peculiarities of the voice, stam- 



