148 



HEREDITY. 



Atavism and 

 Genius. 



she manifested only the most sweet-tempered and 

 amiable disposition. She married a very even- 

 f SanS-Parent tem P ere< ^j kind, conformative man by whom she 

 bore three children; the eldest, a son, resembled 

 his mother, except that he had his grandfather's 

 extremely over-bearing, stubborn and egotistical 

 traits to a painful degree. 



History records many cases of atavism in which 

 slumbering talents have reappeared, to some of 

 which I shall have occasion to refer later. A case 

 worthy of note that came under my personal ob- 

 servation will serve to illustrate the relation of 

 atavism to genius. In 1889 I was called to study 

 an exceptionally bright child. The lad at the 

 age of four had a remarkably well developed 

 brain ; the texture was fine, the organization indi- 

 cated marked originality and superior intellectual 

 ability, particularly in the line of philosophy. The 

 child was a mystery to his parents. His mind 

 ran constantly in lines so far beyond theirs that 

 they were inclined to question his sanity. His 

 mother told me that he would stand for hours at 

 night to question her about the stars, and was 

 continually inquiring about the "why" and the 

 "wherefore" of many things that she had never 

 even thought of. As both parents were very or- 

 dinary and there had been no special prenatal 

 training or maternal impressions that might 

 account for the superiority of the child, I was led 

 to investigate the family history with the hope of 

 discovering a cause adequate to the effect. I 

 found that the mother's family ran back in three 

 generations to one of the best families of Scot- 

 land, and that the father was a lineal descendant 



A Descendant 

 of Newton. 



