142 DARWINISM AND HUMAN LIFE 



that is to say, more near to the mean or mid of the 

 general population " (p. 95). 



" The law of regression tells heavily against the 

 full hereditary transmission of any gift. Only a 

 few out of many children would be likely to differ 

 from mediocrity so widely as their mid-parents, 1 

 and still fewer would differ as widely as the more 

 exceptional of the two parents. The more bounti- 

 fully a parent is gifted by nature, the more rare 

 will be his good fortune if he begets a son who is as 

 richly endowed as himself, and still more so if he 

 has a son who is endowed yet more largely. But 

 the law is even-handed ; it levies an equal succes- 

 sion-tax on the transmission of badness as of 

 goodness. If it discourages the extravagant hopes 

 of a gifted parent that his children will inherit all 

 his powers, it no less discountenances extravagant 

 fears that they will inherit all his weakness and 

 disease " (p. 106). 



" It must be clearly understood that there is 

 nothing in these statements to invalidate the 

 general doctrine that the children of a gifted pair 

 are much more likely to be gifted than the children 

 of a mediocre pair. They merely express the fact 

 that the ablest of all the children of a few gifted 

 pairs is not likely to be as gifted as the ablest of all 

 the children of a very great many mediocre pairs " 

 (p. 106). 



Nor must the fact of regression be supposed 

 to affect the general value of a good stock or the 

 general disadvantage of a bad one. Two gifted 

 members of a poor stock may be personally equiva- 



1 The mid-parent is a statistical fiction, with a stature half that 

 of the two parents when allowance is made for the average difference 

 of stature in the two sexes. 



