RECORD OF FAMILY FACULTIES. 



ancestry up to their eight great-grandparents inclusive, will be equipped 

 with almost as much hereditary information as they can need. But when 

 an alien element of race or disease has been introduced into the family, 

 its influence lasts longer; so that a dash of Hebrew or even of Huguenot 

 blood may be traced far beyond the great-grandchildren, and has often 

 been found to exercise a notable and valuable influence upon numerous 

 descendants. 



There is, also, something of much importance to be added about 

 the brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, and great-uncles and great-aunts 

 of the two parents. Brothers and sisters are alike in blood, but it commonly 

 happens that one of them exhibits some faculty in a conspicuous degree, 

 which exists only in a latent form in another, and which the latter is 

 perhaps equally capable of transmitting to his children. Therefore records 

 of the faculties of the brothers and sisters of the direct ancestors are of 

 great value in disclosing hidden characteristics. 



The biological history of half-blood relatives is of secondary im- 

 portance. Consequently, I have left no place for cousins in this book, 

 though, of course, the writer in it can interleave fresh pages to receive 

 what entries he pleases. 



If the custom of recording family faculties should become common, 

 stores of information will be called into existence from which future 

 inquirers into heredity may have the good fortune to draw copious 

 supplies. I have found great willingness among correspondents to impart 

 family information, when they are assured that it will be used for 

 statistical purposes only, but the comprehensive family information which 

 is now especially needed for scientific study and which, it is hoped, 

 these records will collect, has never yet been brought together, and 

 therefore does not at present admit of being imparted. The advance of 

 the science of heredity is seriously delayed through the want of such data. 

 We do not yet know whether any given group of different faculties which 

 may converge by inheritance upon the same family will blend, neutralise, 

 or intensify one another, nor whether they will be metamorphosed and 

 issue in some new form. Our ignorance is especially great in hereditary 

 maladies, where much alarm undoubtedly exists which inquiry will dispel. 

 It is possible that the different disease tendencies of different ancestors 

 may in some cases neutralise one another, and on the other hand, that 

 some ancestral combinations may be far more hurtful to the descendants 



