THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS 



surely are, ready to be summoned at a moment's notice 

 by the simplest computation. Making fullest con- 

 cessions to consanguineous marriages say by reducing 

 the number one-half there still remain more than one 

 thousand shades to answer the roll-call of each and 

 every individual's ancestors within ten generations past. 

 And the principle of atavism is at hand to prove that 

 any particular tendency of any one of these ancestors 

 may crop out unexpectedly after being long suppressed ; 

 nay, more, that all the multitudinous tendencies of all 

 these ancestors must be represented though combined 

 and modified in the personality of each Smith and 

 Jones, and X, Y or Z of to-day. 



An awful thought, is it not? What wonder that we 

 poor conglomerate mortals are torn by doubts and 

 uncertainties, and contradictory aspirations and con- 

 flicting passions? What wonder that consistency is 

 rarest of jewels? The wonder is rather that we can 

 manage to spin any continuous or rational thread of 

 life at all out of such a tangle of unmiscible tendencies. 

 "Like begets like" has ceased to be the simple prin- 

 ciple that it seemed. 



It appears, then, to use a graphic illustration, that 

 every individual represents the apex of an inverted 

 pyramid of descent, whose base, extending back into 

 history, at some point coincides with the base or a 

 sectional plane of the ancestral pyramid of every other 

 individual of his race. Why, then, since the same 

 principle has applied to all, are not the apices all 

 identical? How has the principle "like begets like," 

 applied to a common ancestry, produced such a diver- 



[302] 



