42 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS 



blood. Notwithstanding Mr. Galton, the least 

 hereditary thing in the world is genius." ^ But 

 M. Caro's conclusions do not affect the law of 

 heredity; he only maintains that the examples 

 of loftiest genius are exceptions to the law and 

 unaccounted for by any law. Who might not ask 

 himself, what law of heredity can account for 

 Martin Luther and John Calvin, for Shakespeare 

 and Wordsworth, for Florence Nightingale and 

 Abraham Lincoln ? In attempting to account 

 for these, it must be remembered that sons are 

 quite as likely to resemble their mothers as their 

 fathers. The mothers of great men are usually 

 unknown; and what genius and power among 

 women have been shut out of sight of the world, 

 or perhaps, alas, suppressed, history does not 

 tell. We know that Commodus resembled Faus- 

 tina and not Aurelius ; that Caligula was not 

 like his father, but the very picture of his detesta- 

 ble mother, Agrippina; we know that Napoleon 

 IL was as much like the weak Marie Louise, as 

 Napoleon L was like the magnificently strong and 

 brave Letizia Ramolino ; we know that Goethe 

 resembled his mother, and that Lord Byron re- 

 ceived, if not his genius, certainly his temper and 

 uncontrollable passion, from the maternal side. 



^ Popular Science Monthly, December, 1883. 



