INHERITANCE OF TEMPERAMENT. M 



I am quite free to confess that the descriptions afforded were by DO 

 means always all that could be desired. I will not deny that, in more 

 than one mating, I was somewhat "put to it" to account for the con 

 ditions in the progeny, given on the "face of the returns," by the most 

 probable zygotic condition of the parents. This is necessarily so from 

 the nature of the data, which are not quantitative. Indeed, no satis 

 factory method of measuring emotions has yet been devised. Never- 

 theless, the difficulties are the exceptions and, on the whole, agreement 

 of findings with hypothesis was striking. 



2. RESULTS. 



Let us now turn our attention to table C, which constitutes the real 

 test of the hypothesis. This table gives the frequency of each class of 

 temperament in the progeny, corresponding with the different combina- 

 tions of zygotic constitution of the parents. All the matings in which 

 the parents have the same (probable) zygotic formula? are grouped 

 together, and these matings are arranged in order, proceeding from 

 the combinations containing the greatest proportion of the E factor 

 down to the combination containing the greatest proportion of the c 

 factor. Reciprocal matings are bunched together, since careful com- 

 parison of matings in which they were separated showed no difference ; 

 in other words, there is no evidence of sex-linkage. The columns 

 corresponding to the different types of offspring are arranged from left 

 to right, primarily in order of decreasing amount of the E factor and 

 secondarily of increasing amount of the c factor. The assignment of 

 one of the offspring to a particular column is made primarily on the 

 basis of the description of his behavior and mood recorded by the field- 

 worker, who, of course, had no idea that the descriptions she secured 

 would be used for any such study as this. It is not to be wondered at, 

 then, that in many cases there is no description of the mood of tin- 

 individual. Such individuals are marked X in the pedigree charts and 

 are not included in the table. In a number of cases offspring are 

 recorded as "stated to be normal," not having been seen by the 

 recorder. In a few cases such persons are assigned to the column 

 e 2 Cc (or calm-phlegmatic), but, usually, to the column ejCg, or strictly 

 normal. The justification for this is that, theoretically, a person of 

 zygotic formula e 2 Cc may occasionally behave exactly like a person of 

 zygotic formula e 2 C 2 and, secondly, that, even though there were a 

 slight departure in behavior from the theoretical normal, this would 

 often be not popularly recognized. For this and other reasons the 

 column of strictly normal (e 2 C 2 ) offspring contains a disproportionately 

 high number of individuals. Usually the offspring are assigned to just 

 those columns where the account of their behavior indicates they 

 belong, and this results, as the inspection of the separate lines shows, in 

 an occasional appearance of an offspring in a class where it is not 



