106 MARRIAGE AND HEREDITY 



the eiSfect of a child's surroundings upon its char- 

 acter is much overrated, it is not altogether to be 

 despised. The phenomena in question may be attri- 

 buted to two causes — first, the principle of reversion 

 or throwing back, and secondly, the metamorphoses 

 of heredity. 



The stud-book has demolished the once accepted 

 theory of " innateness," or the spontaneous generation 

 of virtues and vices in the individual, the breeder 

 who has made sure of an animal's pedigree for the 

 requisite number of generations being able to tell to 

 a nicety what its character will be. But with men 

 and women no such guarantee of perfection is ob- 

 tainable. It takes six or eight generations to fix 

 character in a thoroughbred horse or dog ; and apply- 

 ing the same law to human beings, we are brought 

 face to face with this startling fact that men derive 

 their characteristics from an ancestry spreading out 

 fanlike over some three hundred years, and number- 

 ing perhaps 2000 individuals. Every good quality 

 and every defect that may have existed in any of our 

 forefathers since the reign of Queen Elizabeth is liable 

 to be revived in ourselves, subject to the principle 

 that ancestral influence, as a rule, is fainter in propor- 

 tion as it is more remote. Fortunately there is a 



