CHAP, ix.] THE ARTISTIC FACULTY. 155 



The object of the present chapter is not to give a 

 reply to the simple question, whether or no the Artistic 

 faculty tends to be inherited. A man must be very 

 crotchety or very ignorant, who nowadays seriously 

 doubts the inheritance either of this or of any other 

 faculty. The question is whether or no its inheritance 

 follows a similar law to that which has been shown to 

 govern Stature and Eye-colour, and which has been 

 worked out with some completeness in the foregoing 

 chapters. Before answering this question, it will be 

 convenient to compare the distribution of the Artistic 

 faculty in the two sexes, and to learn the influence 

 it may exercise on marriage selection. 



I began by dividing my data into four classes of 

 aptitudes ; the first was for music alone ; the second 

 for drawing alone ; the third for both music and 

 drawing ; and the fourth includes all those about whose 

 artistic capacities a discreet silence was observed. After 

 prefatory trials, I found it so difficult to separate 

 aptitude for music from aptitude for drawing, that I 

 determined to throw the three first classes into the 

 single group of Artistic. This and the group of the Non- 

 Artistic are the only two divisions now to be considered. 

 A difficulty presented itself at the outset in respect 

 to the families that included boys, girls, and young 

 children, whose artistic tastes and capacities can seldom 

 be fairly judged, while they are liable to be appraised 

 too favourably by the compiler of the Family records, 

 especially if he or she was one of their parents. As the 

 practice of picking and choosing is very hazardous in 



