LUTHER BURBANK 



And this obviously gives opportunity for the 

 appearance of an enormous variety of traits in 

 any given generation that were not manifested in 

 the preceding generation. 



Thus any given individual has normally, as 

 a moment's reflection will show, four grand- 

 parents, eight greatgrandparents, sixteen ancestors 

 in the generation before that, then thirty-two, 

 sixty-four, one hundred and twenty-eight, and 

 so on in a geometrical ratio with each remoter 

 generation. So the normal ancestral clan of any 

 one of us numbers more than a thousand different 

 individuals within the relatively limited period of 

 time compassed by ten generations. 



And, according to the estimate of Galton, to 

 which numberless cases of atavism give force, 

 certain traits and tendencies of each and every one 

 of these ancestors may make themselves manifest 

 in the personality of any given descendant. 



Galton's studies, upon which his formula was 

 based, were chiefly made with reference to human 

 beings, but we now know that the laws of heredity 

 apply with equal force to all kinds of living 

 organisms, including plants; and whatever the 

 limitations of Galton's law as a precise formula, 

 there can be little question as to the general truth 

 of the principle that he invoked. 



Hence the value of that search in imagination 



[18] 



