LUTHER BURBANK 



commonly have no genius; yet that they some- 

 times seem able to transmit genius to their 

 descendants. 



No explanation of this anomaly was forthcom- 

 ing until the recent studies gave a clew through 

 the suggestion that genius is a unit character (or 

 group of traits) which acts in inheritance as a 

 negative or so-called " recessive " character. 



It is pretty obvious, then, that we cannot al- 

 ways tell just what will be the result when repre- 

 sentatives of families having neurotic strains in- 

 termarry. There may be cases in which it will 

 be difficult to predict as to whether the children 

 will probably be stable geniuses or persons of very 

 unstable nervous system. But as the former are 

 very rare or the latter very common, it follows 

 that the chance of favorable results from a union 

 that thus blends neurotic strains is far from 

 favorable. 



[294] 



