58 Heredity, Variation and Genius 



law of Ancestral Heredity — namely, that the 

 mean amount of correlation between two parents 

 and their offspring, between the four grand- 

 parents and that offspring, between the eight 

 grandparents and that offspring, and so on back- 

 wards in the ancestral lineage, diminishes in a 

 geometrical series (one-half, one-quarter, one- 

 eighth, &c), which is the same for all organisms 

 and their characters — it is a conclusion which, 

 however true on the average of such simple 

 character as height is manifestly not true of indi- 

 vidual cases. Anyone selecting for observation 

 different characters of two parents, e.g., the 

 different shapes of their noses, can see plainly 

 that the nose of the offspring may be like the 

 father's nose or like the mother's or an inter- 

 mediate blend of their noses, or not really like the 

 type of either but of a new and quite different 

 shape ; might perhaps see, if he could make the 

 requisite observation, that it was such a combina- 

 tion of latent characters in one or both parents 

 as to give rise to a reversion. It is patent again 

 to common observation that the individual, luckily 

 or it may be unluckily for him, is sometimes 

 much more like his grandfather in features or 

 character than his father, possibly more like his 

 great grandfather or his grand-uncle. Moreover, 

 the so-called law does not accord well, seems 

 indeed to be at variance, with Mendel's theory 

 of inheritance which, segregating characters and 

 distributing them among the germ-cells, supposes 



