54 Heredity. 



lighted up, like mine, with a wild gleam under the influence of 

 passion.' 



It may be remarked that certain determinate forms of memory 

 are hereditary in artist-families. It will be seen that the talents 

 for painting and for music are very often transmitted. Now and 

 then they persist through four or five consecutive generations ; and 

 it is evident that no one can be a good painter without possessing 

 a memory for forms and colours, or be a good musical composer 

 without memory of sounds. 



To sum up, it must be admitted that there are not many facts to 

 show the heredity of memory ; but the conclusion is not thereby 

 justified that this form of heredity is rarer than others. The 

 opposite opinion is still tenable, and the lack of evidences can be 

 explained. 



Memory, with all its undoubted usefulness, plays in human life, 

 and consequently in history, only a secondary and obscure part. 

 It produces no works, like the intellect and the imagination ; nor 

 does it perform any brilliant actions, like the will. It does not 

 give material evidence of itself, like a defect of the senses. It does 

 not come under the ken of the law, like the passions ; nor does it 

 enter the domain of medicine, like mental disease. Since, then, it 

 is so little tangible, the lack of evidences need not surprise us ; and 

 there is still reason to hope that, in proportion as the subject of 

 mental heredity, hitherto much overlooked, is better studied, atten- 

 tion will be directed to this matter, and will abundantly show that 

 here, as elsewhere, heredity is the rule. 



CHAPTER IV. 



HEREDITY OF THE IMAGINATION? 



ALL psychologists distinguish two kinds of imagination : one 

 reproductive, the other creative. Both of these are alike subject 

 to the law of heredity ; perhaps, indeed, apart from instinct and 

 perception, there is no faculty of which the transmission is so 

 common. This is not surprising, if we remember the close relation 



