176 Heredity. 



Lucas does the same. He prudently confines himself to observing 

 that the fact that children begotten in adultery resemble their 

 putative father does not prove the case, as the putative father may 

 also be the real father; and that only in case of the husband's 

 death or prolonged absence could the fact be absolutely con- 

 clusive. I find in Michelet, and repeat with all reserve, an 

 assertion which, if admitted, would be a true case of the heredity 

 of influence, from the psychological point of view, but it is the 

 only case I know. * Madame de Montespau,' says Michelet, 

 'had already had a son by M. de Montespau. The first child 

 she had by the king the Due de Maine resembled only her 

 husband : he had his Gascon disposition, his buffoonery. He 

 might have passed for the grandson of Zamet, the buffoon/ 1 



When this question of the heredity of influence was discussed 

 before the French Anthropological Society, most of the members 

 took the negative side. While admitting that cases of it are fre- 

 quent among animals, they doubted whether a widow could have 

 children resembling her first husband. 2 



We can only repeat what we have already said, and while we do 

 not deny a fact which is not at all impossible, and which could 

 perhaps be explained, we may consider it so rare, so difficult to 

 establish psychologically, that it is useless to insist on it in a study 

 of mental heredity. 



We will now endeavour to get a general view of what has been 

 said on heredity, and to appreciate the results. 



We first reduced the facts to a few empiric formulas, which 

 include them all, viz. direct cross heredity, direct heredity in one 

 sex, reversional heredity and collateral heredity. These we hold 

 to be so many fragments, as it were, of a single law, of which we 

 are sensible, though we do not understand it. We now have to 

 find this law. We do not speak here of the theoretical and ideal 

 law of heredity, which we have already given, but only of an 

 empirical law, a more general formula, which includes and explains 

 all the others. If we succeed in finding all the ties which bind 

 these various formulas together, this simplification of the work 

 will render it easier to understand the nature of heredity. 



1 Histoire de France, tome xiii. 



2 Bulletins de la Societe d? Anthropologie, tome i. p. 291. 



