450 INHERITANCE. Chap. XII. 



writing ii. father and son, although the father had not taught 

 his son. A great collector of autographs assured me that in his 

 collection there were several signatures of father and son hardly 

 distinguishable except by their dates. Hofacker, in Germany, 

 remarks on the inheritance of handwriting ; and it has even 

 been asserted that English boys when taught to write in 

 France naturally cling to their English manner of writing ; 

 but for so extraordinary a statement more evidence is requi- 

 site.^ Gait, gestures, voice, and general bearing are all 

 inherited, as the illustrious Hunter and Sir A. Carlisle have 

 insisted.^ My father communicated to me some sti-ikLng 

 instances, in one of which a man died during the early infancy 

 of his son, and my father, who did not see this son until 

 grown up and out of health, declared that it seemed to him 

 as if his old friend had risen from the grave, with all his 

 highly peculiar habits and manners. Peculiar manners pass 

 into tricks, and several instances could be given of their 

 inheritance ; as in the case, often quoted, of the father who 

 generally slept on his back, with his right leg crossed over 

 the left, and whose daughter, whilst an infant in the cradle, 

 followed exactly the same habit, though an attempt was 

 made to cure her.^" I will give one instance which has 

 fallen under my oAvn observation, and which is curious from 

 being a trick associated with a peculiar state of mind, namely, 

 pleasureable emotion. A boy had the singular habit, when 

 pleased, of rapidly moving his fingers parallel to each other, 

 and, when much excited, of raising both hands, with the 

 fingers still moving, to the sides of his face on a level with 

 the eyes ; when this boy was almost an old man, he could still 

 hardly resist this trick when much pleased, but from its 

 absurdity concealed it. He had eight children. Of these, a 

 girl, when pleased, at the age of four and a half years, moved 

 her fingers in exactly the same way, and what is still odder, 

 when much excited, she raised both her hands, with her 



* Hofacker, ' Ueoer die Eigenschaf- Carlisle, 'Phil. Transact.,' 1814, p. 

 ten,' &c., 1828, s. 34. With respect 94. 



to France, Report by Pariset in '" Girou de Buzareignues, ' De la 



'Comptes Rendus,' 1847, p. 592. Generation,' p. 282. I have given an 



* Hunter, as quoted iii Harlan's analogous case in my book on ' Tha 

 * Med. Researches,' p. 530. Sir A. Expression of the Emotions.* 



