COMPETITION. 123 



that every man who acquires wealth is clever at ac- 

 quiring it, it must at the same time be admitted that 

 a fair proportion of those who succeed are above the 

 average intelligence. 



Property Holders Less Capable than Property Acquirers. 



But the chances that the children of such a man 

 will also be clever in acquiring wealth are again di- 

 minished by the chances that his wife will be deficient 

 in that very quality. We do not know exactly what 

 part the father, or what part the mother contributes 

 to the making of the progeny, and this very fact in- 

 dicates strongly that they each give much alike : 

 were there any marked differences between their 

 contributions these would have been observed, for we 

 have so many chances in everyday life for the study 

 of such problems. We may conclude, therefore, that 

 an average child depends for its faculties as much 

 upon the mother as upon the father. Now, even if 

 we put on one side the probabilities of the choice of 

 a mate having rather opposing qualities than other- 

 wise for we are attracted in marriage to our unlikcs 

 rather than to our likes the chances are that the wife 

 of the man who has acquired wealth will not have more 

 than average capacity. According to this view, the 

 children born of the marriage will, on an average, 

 have less than the father's capacity, supposing him to 

 be a capable man, 



