20 HEREDITY AND SOCIETY 



volume was accepted as a standard of eminence, while 

 admission to the Dictionary was received as proof of 

 distinction. It was found necessary to divide the 

 names into three groups. 



The first group included thirty-one names of men 

 who were born into families possessing a peerage or 

 who themselves received peerages. Nearly the whole 

 of these men distinguished themselves in politics or 

 administration, either civil, military or diplomatic. 

 According to the standard given by admission to the 

 Dictionary they had fifty-four relatives of distinction 

 on their fathers' side, forty-six on the mothers', while 

 forty-one were descendants of the parents of the 

 eminent men. These thirty-one men had between 

 them one hundred and forty-one separate relatives of 

 distinction, or about 4*5 apiece, of whom the great 

 majority showed ability of the same type as their own. 



The second group consisted of men of similar 

 characteristics to the first group, with the exception 

 of the fact that they neither received peerages nor 

 belonged to families possessing that distinction. Here 

 we find that eleven men give but six (possibly seven) 

 able relatives, none of whom were on the side of the 

 mother. 



The third group contained fifty-eight men of dis- 

 tinction drawn from all classes, including some of the 

 great names of English life and thought during the 

 eighteenth century. These men have a total of sixty- 

 one relatives of distinction, or about one apiece, as 

 compared with the 4*5 realised by the first group. 

 Thirty-two of these persons are on the fathers' side, 

 twenty-three are descendants of the parents, and only 



