l66 MENTAL APTITUDES. 



ing the different stages of his life, it remains to be seen what effect 

 these changes in character will have on his offspring produced dur- 

 ing these different stages. Under a strict interpretation of the laws 

 of use-inheritance, we should expect that the sons of early manhood 

 would be active, aggressive and egotistical ; that the children born 

 when he was between thirty and forty would exhibit a tendency 

 toward the musical, the artistic, the beautiful ; that the sons pro- 

 duced when he is between forty and fifty would be practical men of 

 affairs, business men, manufacturers, lawyers and statesmen; and 

 that the sons born after he has passed fifty years of age would be 

 philosophers, moral reformers and philanthropists. 



In testing this a priori reasoning by our tables of birth-ranks 

 I find it very largely correct, and that the mental aptitudes of the 

 child are strongly influenced by the age of the parent at the time 

 of the child's birth. To illustrate this point I have drawn off from 

 the tables, four groups of men who may be considered typical of 

 these respective characters. 



MORALITY, PHILOSOPHY, PHILANTHROPY. STATESMANSHIP. 



BIRTH-RANKS OVER 51. BIRTH-RANKS 41 TO 50, 



Aristotle. Bismarck. 



Arnauld. Canning. 



Bacon. Carnot. 



Boyle. Cato. 



Buddha. Chateaubriand. 



Confucius. Cromwell. 



Franklin. Gladstone. 



Hall. Gracchus. 



Leibnitz. Gustavus Adolphus. 



Moses. Machiavelli. 



Seneca. Peter the Great. 



Solomon. Webster. 





