INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL HEREDITY 



37 



have, with Hke care, studied the action of the 

 law in the region of the mind. This inquiry 

 brings us no doubt to questions at issue between 

 materiahsts and spirituaHsts, but the answer is 

 unaffected by that discussion. If mind is the 

 product of matter, and heredity is a physiological 

 law, then of course it concerns the whole man. 

 If the spiritual nature is independent, if it dwells 

 in the body as a man in his house, then there are 

 distinct phenomena to which the appeal can be 

 made. If, in the third place, there is a mutual 

 relation between the body and the mind, if each 

 modifies the other, and heredity is a law of the 

 material organism, then it must also be a law 

 which so intimately concerns the mind's action as 

 to make its study essential to any scheme of spir- 

 itual philosophy. The investigations of Galton 

 are almost entirely in the sphere of mind, and 

 he has certainly shown that mental and moral 

 characteristics are hereditary ; that a child resem- 

 bles its parents quite as closely in mind as in body. 

 In tables illustrating the heredity of the imagi- 

 nation, I find a list of fifty-one of the most eminent 

 poets of the world, and of that number twenty-two 

 are known to have had illustrious relatives. Prob- 

 ably many more of them had relatives who pos- 

 sessed the soul of genius, without the opportunity 



