CHAPTER XIII 



THE LAW OF ANCESTRAL HEREDITY * 



The extent to which the offspring resembles the parent and the extent to 

 which he resembles more remote ancestors • Chance of resembling a partic- 

 ular individual ancestor • The individual a composite • The number " two " 



The extent to which the offspring resembles the parent and 

 the extent to which he resembles more remote ancestors. We 



have seen already that all individuals transmit and all individuals 

 possess more unit characters than can possibly be fully developed 

 and represented in visible form in their own personality ; that 

 is, every race is rich in characters, — so rich that not all of them 

 can be utilized in the make-up of any single individual. 



We understand, then, that the offspring gets all his char- 

 acters from and through his immediate parents ; there is no 

 other source. We understand, too, that he gets not only those 

 that were specially developed in the personality of the parents, 

 but all others of the race as well, and that out of these the 

 personality of the offspring will be developed. 



We understand, also, that the intensity of transmission is in 

 proportion to intensity of possession, and this for the most part 

 corresponds fairly well to the intensity of infusion of the racial 

 characters among the back ancestors ; that is to say, if a char- 

 acter is present in all the ancestors, it will almost certainly 

 appear in the offspring, while if it is present in but half of the 

 ancestry, the chances are even that it will be transmitted in the 

 latent form. 



All things considered, therefore, we should not expect the off- 

 spring to be like the parent, unless the ancestry were so pure 



1 For a fuller discussion of this subject, see " Principles of Breeding," 

 PP- 5 2 5-534- 



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