88 NO STRUGGLE NO SELECTION 



the name. But of the multitude of cases which he 

 adduces, in none is the inheritance of special intel- 

 lectual power carried beyond the fourth generation. 

 He also draws attention to the fact that the highest 

 display of genius is found either in the first or in the 

 second generation, from which point decadence sets in. 

 This is just what we should expect, when we consider 

 the nature of the inheritance of individual variations. 



The principle illustrated by Galton, as ruling in the 

 transmission of inherited genius, must have prevailed 

 from the beginning of creation in regard to all purely 

 individual qualities or variations, for Nature never 

 changes her laws. Experience and observation, as 

 well as the nature of the case, agree in affirming that 

 the transmission of inherited individual variations is 

 ruled by the same principle of transmission as the 

 inheritance of blood. Our confidence in regard to this 

 principle of transmission is in no way affected by our 

 ignorance in regard to the incalculable action of Nature 

 in giving different degrees of inheritance to the off- 

 spring of the same parents, or in regard to her causing 

 certain variations to lie latent for a generation to re- 

 appear in the next. 



For these seeming vagaries of Nature do not in- 

 validate the necessary action of marriage in destroying 

 within a few generations, and bringing to nothing the 

 potency of individual variations. Individual variations 

 very rarely, if ever, lie latent for two successive 

 generations, and rarely, if ever, do more than reappear 

 a second time in the fifth generation. We see them 



