s ATAVISM, OR REVERSION. 45 



mother's through her father, a most important 

 division of the subject of heredity would be 

 included. Nor are there wanting many and 

 highly-instructive cases of an inheritance from 

 a grandparent by a line of the, same sex pecul- 

 iarities of form and temper where the parent is 

 a mere connecting link in whom the quality 

 transmitted is latent, if in any true sense it can 

 be said to exist at all. Of such a transmission 

 we have instances in the descent of the great 

 qualities of Charles Martel (or the Hammer), 

 through Pipin the Short, to Charles the Great 

 (Charlemagne) ; of the celebrated Dutch marine 

 artist William Yandervelde to his more dis- 

 tinguished grandson William Vandervelde the 

 younger through a son who was an artist but 

 of no repute ; of the musical power of the elder 

 Louis Beethoven to his grandson the famous 

 Ludvig through an undistinguished son. 



These cases are all upon a line of transition, 

 and no doubt it is the same law that is acting 

 through the whole series from parent to a re- 

 mote ancestor. The important idea which at 

 least for the purposes of the present inquiry it 

 is desirable to present at this time is the sudden, 

 unlocked for, and distinct reappearance after a 

 long lapse of some character of a remote ances- 

 tor for the last few generations extinct. Hence 

 it is best to adopt the definition laid down at 

 the beginning of this chapter, and relegate the 



