INFLUENCE OF ORDER OF BIRTH, ETC. 319 



is that able sons are predominantly the offspring of fathers who 

 were old at the time of their son's birth or else that the more 

 recent ancestors of the able sons were of advanced age. This 

 general principle, according to Redfield, can only be accounted for 

 on the ground that children inherit the mental power which their 

 parents have acquired. Since older parents have reached a higher 

 degree of intellectual development than younger parents their 

 children, it is held, will consequently tend to be of superior 

 mental ability. To breed a race of high intellectual power early 

 marriages should be discouraged and children should be pro- 

 created by parents who have attained their best physical and 

 mental development. "Children of young parents," we are told, 

 "are lacking in physical stamina and mental power. They are 

 reckless, careless, sometimes vicious and frequently drift into 

 drunkenness and crime. From this class comes the principal 

 part of our criminals, paupers and prostitutes." 



It is quite evidently an exaggeration to say that the principal 

 part of our criminals, paupers and prostitutes come from youth- 

 ful parents. People who furnish our supply of these undesirables 

 tend to reproduce early it is true; they also tend to keep on 

 reproducing after the people of superior status have begun to 

 limit their families. There is no adequate reason for concluding 

 that youth of parents per se is responsible for the degenerate 

 heredity of the offspring. These people marry early or reproduce 

 young because they are of poor stock; they are not necessarily of 

 poor stock because they marry young. 



We may make a parallel statement in regard to the parents of 

 superior men. Redfield tells us that men of ability come from 

 parents who are above the age of the parents of the rank and file 

 of humanity. This is to a considerable extent true of the age 

 at marriage of stocks from which great men are apt to arise. 

 As a glance through such works as Galton's Hereditary Genius, 

 Ellis' Study of British Genius, Galton and Schuster's Noteworthy 

 Families, or Cattell's articles on the Families of American Men 

 of Science ^ will show, the parents of distinguished men belong 



1 Sci. Mon, 4 and 5, 1917. 



