ESTHETIC FACULTIES. 33 



tendency which is the exact opposite of use- 

 inheritance ? But nobody collects facts concern- 

 ing the degenerate branches of musical families. 

 Only the favoura bly varying branches are noticed, 

 and a general impression of rapid evolution of 

 talent is thus produced. Such cases might be 

 explained, too, by the facts that musical faculty 

 is strong in both sexes, that musical families 

 associate together, and that the more gifted mem- 

 bers may intermarry. Great musicians are often 

 astonishingly precocious. Meyerbeer " played 

 brilliantly '* at the age of six. Mozart played 

 beautifully at four. Are we to suppose that the 

 effect of the adult practice of parents was in- 

 herited at this early age ? If use-inheritance was 

 not necessary in the case of Handel, whose 

 father was a surgeon, why is it needed to 

 account for Bach ? 



D 



