MAN 233 



feeble-minded Goliath is hardly of much use in the world, 

 while a Eobert Louis Stevenson struggling through life 

 with the handicap of a delicate constitution leaves an im- 

 perishable monument. At any rate, there are few who 

 deny the inheritance of physical differences. Pedigrees 

 showing the exact method of inheritance of physical traits 

 are too numerous. 



The first real study of the inheritance of mental 

 capacity was Galton's *' Hereditary Genius,'' jDublished in 

 1869.'^^ By comparing the attainments of the relatives of 

 eminent men from the United Kingdom with the attain- 

 ments of its population as a whole he proved beyond a 

 reasonable doubt the inheritance of potential capacity, 

 though he had no inkling of how this capacity was trans- 

 mitted. His conclusions have been corroborated by the 

 works of Havelock Ellis ®^ on ^^British Men of Genius"; 

 of Woods 22^ on ** Heredity in Eoyalty," where lack of 

 opportunity did not play such a disturbing role ; and of 

 Cattell,^^ Nearing, ^^^' ^^^ and Davenport**' on eminent 

 Americans. Perhaps the most striking feature of Gal- 

 ton's researches is the evidence of rarity of genius among 

 a people who have contributed the greatest amount of 

 creative work of the first magnitude in modern times (see 

 Merz ^'*^). Only two hundred and fifty men per million 

 of the British population became eminent. Though un- 

 questionably this proportion must be increased several 

 times because of the lack of opportunity of those similarly 

 endowed to give full rein to their capacity, and because 

 eminence as measured by history is fallacious in the ex- 

 treme, nevertheless, when translated into the terms of 

 modem genetics this ratio has a definite meaning. The 

 hereditary factors which contribute toward the possibility 



