96 ON HEREDITY. 



through the course of a long series of generations. The Bach 

 family shows that musical talent, and the Bernoulli family that 

 mathematical power, can be transmitted from generation to genera- 

 tion, but this teaches us nothing as to the origin of such talents. 

 In both families the high-water mark of talent lies, not at the end 

 of the series of generations, as it should do if the results of practice 

 are transmitted, but in the middle. Again, talents frequently 

 appear in some single member of a family which has not been 

 previously distinguished. 



Gauss was not the son of a mathematician ; Handel's father ^ -;is 

 a surgeon, of whose musical powers nothing is known ; Titian was 

 the son and also the nephew of a lawyer, while he and his brother, 

 Francesco Vecellio, were the first painters in a family which pro- 

 duced a succession of seven other artists with diminishing talents. 

 These facts do not, however, prove that the condition of the nerve- 

 tracts and centres of the brain, which determine the specific talent, 

 appeared for the first time in these men : the appropriate condition 

 surely existed previously in their parents, although it did not 

 achieve expression. They prove, as it seems to me, that a high 

 degree of endowment in a special direction, which we call talent, 

 cannot have arisen from the experience of previous generations, that 

 is, by the exercise of the brain in the same specific direction. 



It appears to me that talent consists in a happy combination of 

 exceptionally high gifts, developed in one special direction. At 

 present, it is of course impossible to understand the physiological 

 conditions which render the origin of such combinations possible, 

 but it is very probable that the crossing of the mental dispositions 

 of the parents plays a great part in it. This has been admirably 

 and concisely expressed by Goethe in describing his own charac- 

 teristics 



Vom Vater hab' icli die Statur 



Des Lebens ernstes Ftthren, 



"Vom Miitterchen die Frohnatur 



Die Lust zuin Fabuliren, etc. 



The combination of talents frequently found in one individual, 

 and the appearance of different remarkable talents in the various 

 branches of one and the same family, indicate that talents are only 

 special combinations of certain highly-developed mental dispositions 

 which are found in every brain. Many painters have been admir- 

 able musicians, and we very frequently find both these talents 



