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form exists, but that the influence of heredity manifests 

 itself frequently under such circumstances is proved by 

 innumerable facts as to resemblances of face, inclinations, 

 passions, characters, deformity, and disease, between uncle 

 and nephew, aunt and niece, grand-uncle and grand-nephew, 

 and even amid the ramifications of distant cousinship. 

 Ribot gives many instances in illustration of this law. 



The Heredity of Influence, or pre-marital heredity, is seen 

 when the child of a second or third marriage resembles the 

 husband in a previous marriage. Although facts are 

 forthcoming as to such an influence affecting " the lower and 

 even the higher animals," yet so far as man is concerned, 

 the instances of this are very few, if they occur at all. This 

 form is, moreover, in an unnatural order, and presents no 

 real analogy to either direct, reversional, or indirect heredity, 

 as it would necessitate a child "resembling a person who 

 has nothing in common with him, save that the person was 

 once its mother's husband." 



Specialised, or Initial Heredity. This is a form of heredity 

 of considerable importance, although not included in the 

 formularies given by Ribot. It depends upon the temporary 

 mood or condition, good or bad, fortunate or unfortunate, 

 of parents when they became such. " A good initial 

 heredity," says a writer, "may produce virtue in the 

 descendants by predisposition merely from a temporarily 

 ennobled nature, although there was in general vice in the 

 parents, and so a bad direct heredity. If you are in a lofty 

 mood Providence is on your side ; but, when a drunkard, 

 on the one hand, or when, on the other, a man generally 

 temperate, but in a temporary debauch, places himself 

 under the power of this law of heredity, the specific or 

 initial principle acts just as surely to produce an inheritance 



