THE LESSON OF HEREDITY 



to the old-time average status as witness the wild 

 horse. 



All this, of course, is explained easily through the 

 struggle for existence and its resulting natural selection. 

 Now exactly the same thing occurs among human 

 families under similar conditions. The best illustration 

 is afforded by the uniform history of royal dynasties. 

 Founded usually by some person who combined rare 

 and desirable hereditary tendencies, they are per- 

 petuated by tradition, under an enervating environment, 

 to whose undermining influences are added the like 

 influences of marriages of expediency and often of 

 consanguinity, until in a few generations the inevitable 

 result is reached of ill-balanced offspring, often brilliant 

 in certain useless directions, as often insane, who are 

 unfitted to rule, and who are presently supplanted, 

 despite tradition, by some strong offshoot of the family, 

 or some entire outsider, whose descendants will in 

 turn reenact the same cycle of degeneration. 



In a lesser degree, this same cycle is to be witnessed 

 in the family histories of those upper strata of society 

 that are always prone to model after royalty. The 

 degeneration and frequent extinction of our " oldest 

 and best families," with the concomitant rise of new 

 families, is an illustration within the experience of 

 everyone. But everywhere it is the same story : through 

 environment, primarily, are the changes wrought: 

 through heredity especially as exemplified in atavism 

 is the stability of the race maintained. These two 

 forces are respectively the Radicals and the Conserv- 

 atives of Nature. The one insures progress, the other 



