HEREDITARY TRAITS. 



IN Montaigne's well-known essay on the ' Resemblance of 

 Children to their Fathers/ the philosopher of Perigord 

 remarks that * there is a certain sort of crafty humility that 

 springs from presumption ; as this, for example, that we 

 confess our ignorance in many things, and are so courteous 

 as to acknowledge that there are in works of nature some 

 qualities and conditions that are imperceptible to us, and of 

 which our understanding cannot discern the means and 

 causes ; by which honest declaration we hope to obtain that 

 people shall also believe us of those that we say we do 

 understand.' ' We need not trouble ourselves, 5 he goes on, 

 4 to seek out miracles and strange difficulties ; methinks 

 there are such incomprehensible wonders amongst the 

 things that we ordinarily see as surpass all difficulties of 

 miracles/ He applies these remarks to inherited pecu- 

 liarities of feature, figure, character, constitution, habits, and 

 so forth. And certainly few of the phenomena of nature 

 are more wonderful than these, in the sense of being less 

 obviously referable to any cause which seems competent to 

 produce them. Many of those natural phenomena which 

 are regarded as most striking are in this respect not to be 

 compared with the known phenomena of heredity. The 

 motions of the planets can all be referred to regular laws ; 

 chemical changes are systematic, and their sequence at least 

 is understood ; the phenomena of heat, light, and electricity 

 are gradually finding interpretation. It is true that all these 

 phenomena become in a sense as miracles when we en- 



