"108 MARRIAGE AND HEREDITY 



again, takes after his savage progenitor, who lived 

 in the woods. So he does also when on the floor of 

 a room he turns round and round on the same spot 

 before lying down, as if to make a bed in the grass. 

 Darwin gives curious examples of this kind. Many 

 of our acts in daily life, apparently dictated by reason, 

 are in reality the survival of habits contracted by 

 our savage forefathers. Nothing appears more 

 natural to us than to open and extend the hand as a 

 sign of frankness ; but this gesture is merely a testi- 

 mony that we carry no weapons, and have no inten- 

 tion of making an attack. Naturalists tell us also 

 that to uncover our teeth in anger means that we 

 have inherited an iustinct to bite. The military 

 spirit of civilised peoples, so deplorable in its effects, 

 is probably inherited from savage ancestors with 

 whom war was a necessary condition of existence ! 



The effects of throwing back are frequently seen 

 in the likeness existing between nephews and uncles, 

 nieces and aunts, cousins and other more distant 

 relatives. The similarity of feature or of sentiment 

 in such cases is no doubt derived from a common 

 ancestor of the parties concerned. No other explana- 

 tion seems to be possible, seeing that the individuals 

 resembling each other have, as a rule, been brought 



