176 MENTAL APTITUDES. 



GOETHE AND POPE. 



In the ancestry of Goethe we find that the grandfather had, from 

 a source which we can only surmise, as biography is silent on the 

 point, sufficient mental ability to raise himself somewhat above the 

 class from which he sprang, and that he was fifty-three years old 

 before his son was born. This son, the father of Goethe, was a very 

 severe student and applied himself with great energy to his own 

 education. When he was at the age of thirty-nine, and conse- 

 quently after great mental training, his son, the poet, was born. 

 The mother of Goethe was quite young herself, but she was the 

 daughter of an educated official when he was thirty-eight, and 

 through this. source we would have transmission by sex. In addi- 

 tion to this Goethe was endowed with a magnificent physique and 

 was given the best possible education. We thus have in the hered- 

 ity of Goethe all of the factors that tend toward development as 

 very high except the birth-rank 39, which is only moderately high. 

 It is therefore quite evident that the figure 39, taken by itself, is 

 not a fair estimate of Goethe when comparing him with other per- 

 sons. 



In the case of Pope I cannot find the birth-rank of his father, 

 but I find that his mother was the daughter of a man forty-five 

 years of age. In transmission by sex, this [45] is as potent an 

 influence as it would be if it were the father's instead of the moth- 

 er's birth-rank. Although Pope is placed low in the scale of these 

 eight poets, it is clear that if we should consider him purely from 

 the intellectual standpoint he would be placed in a somewhat higher 

 position. 



We know, however, that Pope was handicapped by physical 

 infirmities which he inherited from both parents, and which made 



