VARIATION AND HEREDITY 23 



stock of political, administrative, military and legal 

 talent had been separated out by a process of like-to- 

 like mating and the formation of a class, which, if not 

 apart, was undoubtedly distinct, from the general mass 

 of the population. Now administrative ability is essen- 

 tial to a nation at every stage of its development, and 

 consequently has been sorted out earlier and possibly 

 to a greater extent than any other characteristic, as an 

 essential accompaniment of successful national develop- 

 ment through the last thousand years of history. 

 From intermarriages among the picked members of 

 this class, we obtained a constant and assured succession 

 of men of a certain type of ability and character. 



In the case of the second and third groups, which 

 deal for the most part with men in whose families 

 there is little or no previous record of ability, it 

 seems as if the particular marriage of the parents had 

 brought the required elements together in a manner 

 which could not have been foreseen. Out of the 

 hundreds of thousands of chance alliances, usually in 

 the middle classes and seldom of a very low social 

 standard, some one marriage will give birth to a man 

 of eminence, but, in what department of life he will 

 be eminent, there is no means of predicting. 



This point is emphasized by the more frequent 

 appearance of ability of the same type in the brothers 

 and sisters of the eminent man of this class rather 

 than among his other relatives. We may recall the 

 sisters Bronte", the brothers Tennyson, the Rossetti 

 family, and other fraternal groups which could be 

 added to that of Reynolds and his sister, Romney and 

 his brother, the brothers Wilberforce, the two Southeys, 



