26 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS 



when the grandson was very young, if not be- 

 fore he was born. The Bourbon family has 

 always been distinguished by the aquiline nose. 



Ribot gives a curious instance showing that 

 sometimes one of the parents transmits the entire 

 physical, the other the entire spiritual, nature. 

 He says : " The most curious and incontestable 

 instance of this is the case of Lislet-Geoffrey, 

 engineer in Mauritius. He was the son of a 

 white man and a very stupid negress. In phys- 

 ical constitution he was as much a negro as his 

 mother ; he had the features, the complexion, the 

 woolly hair, and the peculiar odour of his race. . . . 

 He was so thoroughly a white as regards intel- 

 lectual development that he succeeded in van- 

 quishing the prejudices of blood, so strong in the 

 colonies, and in being admitted into the most 

 aristocratic houses. At the time of his death 

 he was Corresponding Member of the Academy 

 of Sciences." ^ 



In Washington Territory I myself saw an 

 instance which seems more like the inheritance 

 by a daughter of the entire nature of her father. 

 The young woman, about thirty years of age, 

 was one of the most beautiful in form, feature, 

 and complexion, one of the most attractive in 



1 Heredity, Ribot, p. 155. 



