Heredity 



in heredity to explain my taste for observa- 

 tion. You may say that I do not go far 

 enough back. Well, what should I find be- 

 yond the grandparents where my facts come 

 to a stop ? I know, partly. I should find even 

 more uncultured ancestors: sons of the soil, 

 ploughmen, sowers of rye, neat-herds; one 

 and all, by the very force of things, of not the 

 least account in the nice matters of observa- 

 tion. 



And yet, in me, the observer, the enquirer 

 into things began to take shape almost in in- 

 fancy. Why should I not describe my first 

 discoveries? They are ingenuous in the ex- 

 treme, but will serve notwithstanding to tell 

 us something of the way in which tendencies 

 first show themselves. I was five or six years 

 old. That the poor household might have 

 one mouth less to feed, I had been placed in 

 grandmother's care, as I have just been saying. 

 Here, in solitude, my first gleams of intelli- 

 gence were awakened amidst the geese, the 

 calves and the sheep. Everything before that 

 is impenetrable darkness. My real birth is at 

 that moment when the dawn of personality 

 rises, dispersing the mists of unconsciousness 

 and leaving a lasting memory. I can see my- 

 self plainly, clad in a soiled frieze frock flap- 



127 



