196 Heredity. 



for their continuance. Thus it is with the hornless bulls, or mocJws t 

 of the Argentine Republic, with rumpless fowls, bantams, etc. 



If we pass from the physiological to the psychological order we 

 shall find no less striking instances of spontaneity. 



Phrenologists have accumulated facts to show that among 

 animals, where we see only uniformity of habits, characters, and 

 physical aptitudes, there exist between members of the same 

 family individual differences, which, as they do not result from 

 education, are due to spontaneity. In a litter of wolf cubs taken 

 from their dam, says Gall, and which were all brought up in the 

 same way, one became tame and gentle like a dog, while the others 

 preserved their natural savagery. 



In twins there sometimes occur extreme contrasts of tastes, 

 propensities, and ideas. This was observed by the ancients : 



Castor gaudet equis, ovo prognatus eodem 

 Pugnis. 



What is still more curious is, that double monsters, when they 

 survive, may possess different psychical constitutions. Serres ob- 

 served this in the case of Ritta and Christina, the female twins of 

 Presburg, who were united by the inferior lumbar vertebrae. They 

 differed completely in character. One was handsome, gentle, 

 sedate, with sensuous character little marked ; the other ugly, ill- 

 conditioned, quarrelsome, and of strong passions. Her outbursts 

 of rage against her sister, and their disputes became so frequent, 

 that in the convent where Cardinal von Saxe-Zeits had placed them, 

 the inmates were compelled to give them in charge of a watcher, 

 who never left them alone. Notwithstanding these quarrels, they 

 lived to the age of twenty-two. 



It has been said that the law of spontaneity cannot be disputed, 

 since we see the sons of great men unworthy of them. By what 

 singular freak of nature did two fools like Paxalos and Xantippos, 

 and a maniac like Clinias, spring from Pericles ? or from the 

 upright Aristippos, the infamous Lysimachos? from the grave 

 Thucydides, a silly Milesias or a stupid Stephanos? from the 

 temperate Phocion, the dissolute Phocus? from Sophocles, Aris- 

 tarchos, Socrates, and Themistocles unworthy sons? And the 

 like differences are to be found in Roman history : Cicero and his 

 son, Germanicus and Caligula, Vespasian and Domitian, Marcus 



