INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL HEREDITY 



45 



is known of the early history of Mrs. Byron, but 

 quite enough of the extraordinary violence of her 

 temper, and its effects upon her health after any 

 sudden explosion of choler, to warrant the belief 

 that some cerebral disease occasioned that degree 

 of excitability which is quite unparalleled in the 

 history of any lady of sane mind." ^ It is not 

 strange that Macaulay could write of a man born 

 of such a mother : " Never had any writer so vast 

 a command of the whole eloquence of scorn, mis- 

 anthropy, and despair. That Marah was never 

 dry. No art could sweeten, no draughts could 

 exhaustj its perennial waters of bitterness. Never 

 was there such variety in monotony as that of 

 Byron. From maniac laughter to piercing lam- 

 entation, there was not a single note of human 

 anguish of which he was not master." ^ 



The law of heredity in its relation to pauperism 

 and crime has been exhaustively treated by R. L. 

 Dugdale, in his little monograph, entitled " The 

 Jukes^' in which the unhappy descendants of one 

 neglected and vicious girl are traced through 

 many generations. It is a book to be carefully 

 studied by all interested in the relation of sociol- 

 ogy to theology. Its facts are almost too terrible 

 to be summarized. It shows that a very large pro- 

 1 Parents' Guide, Mrs. Hester Pendleton, p. 21. ^ /^/(/. p_ 22. 



