72 Heredity. 



form, beyond time and space, and then they have nothing in 

 common with experience; or we consider them in their pheno- 

 menal manifestations, and then there is no logical ground for 

 exempting them from the law of heredity. 



II. 



It must now be shown from facts that this transmission is not 

 only possible, but actual. Here is a difficulty. Intellect that is 

 to say, the faculty of comparing, judging, reasoning is found 

 everywhere in science, politics, art, industrial inventions, learning, 

 history, etc. Is it, therefore, necessary to class under the head of 

 intellect every case of heredity in politics, literature, and art ? We 

 must have recourse to an artificial process, and divide what in 

 nature is united. Surrendering, therefore, to imagination all that 

 concerns artists, and to active faculties all that has to do with 

 politics, we here treat only of cases in which pure intellect that is 

 to say, reflection, taste, or criticism predominates. 



Still these cases are sufficiently numerous to make two catego- 

 ries. In the first we place men of science, philosophers, poli- 

 tical economists, etc. ; in the second, writers, properly so called, 

 historians, critics, and novelists. This division is, of course, some- 

 what arbitrary, nor should any great stress be laid on it ; but it 

 will enable us to introduce more order into our arrangement 



MEN OF SCIENCE. 



Families eminent in science are not rare. Many scientific men 

 take after their fathers. The atmosphere of free inquiry in which 

 they were brought up has not been without influence on their 

 vocation. Still, education does not constitute genius ; and in order 

 to have a turn for scientific investigation, something more is 

 required than the external transmission resulting from education. 

 It has also been observed that the mothers or grandmothers of 

 several men of science were remarkable women, as in the case of 

 Buffon, Bacon, Condorcet, Cuvier, d'Alembert, Forbes, Watt, 

 Jussieu, etc. 1 Heredity among philosophers is somewhat rare. 



1 Gallon, who notes this fact, assigns for it a reason which to us seems very 

 questionable. Women, says he, are blinder partisans and more servile fol- 

 lowers of custom than men ; and it is a great blessing for a child to have a mother 



