J 66 Heredity. 



and her daughter Adelaide. 'The queen, before her marriage, had a 

 tendency to epileptic fits. Even after her marriage, being agitated 

 with causeless fears, she would rise from her bed at night and walk 

 about. Madame Adelaide appears to have inherited much of this 

 excitability. She was brave, with the courage of her race, with 

 some childish fears, as for instance of thunder. .... The queen 

 loved her father (Stanislas), and was very much beloved by him, 

 which aroused her mother's jealousy. This, too, Adelaide in- 

 herited from her mother, and she loved her father beyond all 

 bounds of reason.* (Histoire de France, tome xvi.) 



To sum up all that we have said about direct heredity : it is 

 certain that the child inherits from both parents. It never happens 

 that either parent exercises an exclusive influence. The action of 

 one is always preponderant, this preponderance takes place in two 

 ways, either within the same sex or from one sex to the other. As 

 we have seen, both of these are of very frequent occurrence. 



The only question is, which is the more frequent ? 



An answer is impossible, and even if it were possible, it would 

 be to no purpose. To make it perfectly exact we should have to 

 bring together all the cases of direct heredity and range them in 

 two groups : on the one hand, cross heredity, and on the other 

 heredity in the same sex, and then compare the totals. Yet all 

 this labour, even if possible, would lead to nothing. Between 

 these totals there would probably be so small a difference that no 

 one could say which expressed the law and which the exceptions. 

 Whenever a case of this kind arises, we may say that both sides 

 are right and both wrong ; that each possesses only a fragment of 

 the law, thinking he possesses the whole, and that there is some 

 higher point of view which will reconcile the two. With regard 

 to heredity, we seek that law of which fragments only have so far 

 been given to us by our empiric generalizations. But we must 

 first study the phenomena of atavism. 



SECTION II. ATAVISM. 



Whenever a child, instead of resembling his immediate parents, 

 resembles one of his grandparents, or some still remoter ancestor, 

 or even some distant member of a collateral branch of the family 

 a circumstance which must be attributed to the descent of all its 



