142 



NATURE 



[November 30, 1911 



on 1 1 II- (1 ! !!• .' i .1 ■ ~ I 'i l'lll]irl iiulT I .11 111 II' I I ill l.ll llllU''S, 



because ill" V, iiiil- .111- strongest in tin wintir, when the 



difference ul lill!|)' i.iinu- ln-lu.-in ih. iM.ni. -. imd ihi- nnl.- 



is greatest; Imi \' 



thi^ prorf*ss tiiT tli !■ 



ill iccais to have lu du latlnn with i\ 



of pressure, which elscwheri 1 \va\- 



( ilieu iMi- cmuroidcry of the barofiram, than with ih<- inaii; 



f-^atures of the barograin. Considerations uf span pn v<-ii! 



iiv t>nf,iii.if( li..i-.. ilv ^iiij[»estions that this infijxisiiioi, 



liat the subject is not ixh.uKiid 



W. N. SiiAW. 



The Inheritance of Mental Characters. 



Mr. Walkkr sent nic, before publication, the letter 

 which appeared ui Nauki; oI November 23. In reply I ex- 

 plainf'd that, thouj^ii 1 have insisted elsewhere that the 

 \ niU inhorn, acquired, and inheritable are often incorrectly 

 I - -d, >i-t in my paper to the Eugenics Education Society 

 1 did not define the meanings of them, partly because my 

 space was limited and partly because 1 thought no mis- 

 apprehension could arise in the minds of my audience. 

 None did arise. But I learn, with surprise, that some 

 would have arisen had my critic been present. I used the 

 words exactly as they are commonly used in biological 

 literature, terming such characters as heads and instincts 

 i iborn and inheritable, and such characters as scars and a 

 knowledge of Latin acquired. 



In Mr. Walker's book, " Hereditary Characters," he was 

 good enough to reproduce many of my conclusions almost 

 in my own words; for example, "In considering the 

 mental characters of man we are forced to the conclusion 

 that almost all are acquirements, and that very little besides 

 consciousness, memory, capacities for making various 

 acquirements, and a few instincts is inborn." This is 

 precisely my opinion as elaborately set forth, not only " on 

 all previous occasions," but in the very paper he criticises. 

 The astounding thing is that he should imagine that it is, 

 or may be, also the opinion of Prof. Karl Pearson, whose 

 statement, he thinks, " may be loosely expressed and open 

 t(i misinterpretation," but " which does not appear, on the 

 face of it, to be at variance with his own views." I fear 

 Prof. Pearson will pray ardently to be delivered from his 

 friends. 



I must complain that the sentence Mr. Walker quotes 

 from my paper is, in the absence of its context, open to 

 misinterpretation. I was not merely railing. The follow- 

 ing is the passage from which it is taken. Prof. Pearson 

 does not use the w-ord " inborn " ; but if the word " inherit- 

 able " or " physical " be substituted for it, mv meaning is 

 unaltered 



" . . . Here we have an example of a conclusion based, 

 like many more of the conclusions of biometricians, on an 

 ascertained correlation. It is assumed that, since offspring 

 reproduce parental mental characters in the same degree as 

 their physical characters, therefore, if the latter are inborn, 

 the former must be inborn also. In other words, it is 

 assumed that one kind of sameness necessarily involves 

 another and a different kind of sameness." 



Now, though I have collected no family histories bear- 

 ing on the subject, I think that no one will deny that such 

 characters as heads, hearts, lungs, livers, and the like are 

 inborn and invariably present in parents and offspring — at 

 any rate in offspring that reach school age. Here we have 

 aUsolute certainty of inheritance. .'Vgain, I think no one 

 will deny that parental birth-marks, moles, and the like, are 

 also inborn, and that they are hardl\ ov, r, if ever, repro- 

 duced by offspring. Here the degree of inheritability is 

 zero. Between these extremes of inheritability lie the 

 degrees of inheritability of all the other characters. Some, 

 like ten fingers and ten toes, are reproduced almost as 

 c.rtainly as heads ; others, like eye-colour and hair texture, 

 with less certainty ; others with still less ccrtaintv ; and 

 so on, and so on, until we reach characters the inherit- 

 .-ihility of which is scarcely greater than that of birth-marks 

 aiid moles. Plainly, then, since the inheritance of inborn 

 characters varies between certainty and zero, Pearson's 



.iiiU i.iiiiii^ msiuiirs 



scientific precision, it i*- 



In tiii' eis. (if Ills 111. : 



nificance— 

 • f scientiti' 



il il.lV- -. 



Iw 1- UUlt- 



'iui.> d b} utl.<>priiig Hi about the hui 

 ;^li.sh ciiildren have heads, and . 

 i.ngiisn. Ji, men, you are satisfied with the in- 

 ay conclude that English speech in English < 



...I ■-.' ......I..,! " '», alternativ.-i- '!>■■• ' 



I liildr- : ;• you are . 



iiavini^ : .ose from. 



G. AKCliUALL Rfclt) 



Southsea, November 26. 



Amedeo Avogadro. 



;\\' 11 A a century has passed away since the emin' 



llali.'ui I 

 ing hi- 

 of chi . 



.t A\ 



adro published the law which, be;j 

 iliar to every elementary student; 

 Owing to various causes^^ 

 Avogadru's labours were but little appreciated, and thoughi 

 he occupied a foremost position among Italian men o| 

 science the scientific world in general evinced but lit 

 interest in his work. Even the indefatigable Kopp fai 

 to realise the importance of his speculations, with the resul 

 that his first history of chemistry contained no reference 

 all to them. Like Carnot's, .\vogadro's writings had 

 await an interpreter and supporter. In this respei t. hov 

 ever, fortune proved more than kind, and in hi? countr} 

 man Cannizzaro, Avogadro obtained an illustrious disciji 

 and a brilliant exponent of his doctrine. But while it 

 true that the name of Avogadro is now widely known, 

 is no less true that the record of his life seems to ha 

 escaped biographers and historians alike, a statenT 

 which will be substantiated by a search throuc'i ' 

 ordinary English works of reference. 



Count Amedeo .'\vogadro di Quaregna came of a u 

 tinguished and noble family of Biella, a small town so: 

 way north of Turin, in Piedmont. Various members 

 the family had won fame in the courts or on the field, 1 

 the name is unknown to the world at large except throuj, 

 the work of this student of physical science. .Amedeo - 

 father. Count Filippo, married Anna Vercell«ne, of Biell: 

 and on August 9, 1776, their son was born at Turin, ti 

 birthplace of Lagrange. In obedience to his father's wisl: 

 young Avogadro studied law. He received his diploma ■ 

 March 16, 1796, and during the ne.xt few years occup; 

 positions in various branches of the law offices. In .\pr: 

 1801, he was appointed secretary to the Prefecture of t' 

 Eridano province. His natural inclination for mathemat; 

 and physics, however, led him to carry on his studies, a 

 with his brother Felice he wrote, and presented to ti 

 Academy of Sciences of Turin, two papers, in 1803 a- 

 1804, the first being on electricity and the second on ti 

 nature of metallic salts. For this work the brothers w< 

 nominated corresponding members of the academy on Ju 

 5, 1804. Amedeo now obtained permission from his fath 

 to follow the career of his own choosing, and after a sh' 

 course of study he became in 1806 a demonstrator at t 

 Royal College of the Provinces. Three years later, ■ 

 November 7, 1809, he was appointed professor of posit; 

 philosophy (physics and mathematics) in the Lyceum 

 Vercelli, where he remained until 182 1. It was during t 

 early years of his residence at Vercelli that he produced tl 

 two memoirs which have immortalised his name. Both 

 the memoirs were published in the Journal de Physique of 

 De la Meth^rie. The first, which appeared in iSii, w 

 entitled " Essai d'une mani^re de determiner les mas- 

 relatives des molecules ^l^mentaires des corps, et les p; 

 portions selon lesquelles elles entrent dans ce co; 

 binaison " ; the second app>eared '" ^'^''.. and was entitl-A. 

 " M^moire sur les masses rein orps simples, ou 



densit^s prdsum^es de leur gar, wogadro returned 



to the same subject in a memoir which he published in 

 182 1, 1826, and in 1840. and he investigated other problems 

 bearing on the same subject. His other researches in- 

 cluded questions in electricity, chemistry, electrochemistry, 

 specific heat, and the expansion of bodies. 



NO. 2196, VOL. 88] 



