Human Physiology. 289 



are usually taken with respect to males. In human families we 

 find some children strongly resembling the father, some looking 

 more like the mother, while some mingle the traits of both. A 

 child also not unfrequently bears more resemblance to one of 

 its grandparents, or uncles, or aunts, than to either of its parents. 



Celebrated men, it is held, are more often indebted to their 

 mothers than their fathers for the qualities that make them 

 famous. We have no sufficient collection of facts to enable us 

 to say that special qualities are inherited from either parent ; 

 and it may be that their respective and relative conditions at 

 the period of conception determine the character or extent of 

 their influence upon the child. The resemblance of the off- 

 spring to the male is said to be more striking in proportion to 

 the state of his health, or the energy of his vitality. Certainly, 

 a man of exhausted nervous power cannot expect to give to his 

 offspring what he does not possess. 



But we must go beyond the parents to find the causes of the 

 difference in the children of the same family. Remote pecu- 

 liarities crop out ; and the varying relations of the parents to 

 each other, and their relations to other persons, undoubtedly 

 have an influence. 



Sometimes the children of a woman by a second husband 

 resemble her first husband. It is seen in animals that one 

 male gives the type to the future progeny sired by others. So 

 a man who is only the friend of a lady may, as it is said, 

 "mark" her offspring. Even pictures or statues are believed 

 to have an influence upon the forms and features of children ; 

 and we may well believe that the mother who is surrounded 

 by beauty and music is more likely than another to have beau- 

 tiful and musical, or at least tasteful and cultivated children. 

 One child of a family may have a musical ear, and others be 

 deficient one may be a genius, and the others very common 

 mortals, and this where there can be no suspicion of varying 

 paternity. Still, every effect must have its sufficient cause. 



T 



