234 NATURAL INHERITANCE. 



with, first arose simultaneously in the three brothers of a family 

 who transmitted their peculiarities with unusual tenacity to numer- 

 ous descendants through at least four generations. Other influences 

 act in antagonism to the foregoing ; they are the events of domestic 

 life, which instead of assimilating tempers tend to accentuate slight 

 differences in them. Thus if some members of a family are a little 

 submissive by nature, others who are naturally domineering are 

 tempted to become more so. Then the acquired habit of dictation 

 in these reacts upon the others and makes them still more sub- 

 missive. In the collection I made of the histories of twins who 

 were closely alike, it was most commonly said that one of the twins 

 was guided by the other. I suppose that after their many childish 

 struggles for supremacy, each finally discovered his own relative 

 strength of character, and thenceforth the stronger developed into 

 the leader, while the weaker contentedly subsided into the position 

 of being led. Again, it is sometimes observed that one member of 

 an otherwise easygoing family, discovers that he or she may exer- 

 cise considerable power by adopting the habit of being persistently 

 disagreeable whenever he or she does not get the first and best of 

 everything. Some wives contrive to tyrannise over husbands who 

 are mild and sensitive, who hate family scenes and dread the dis- 

 grace attending them, by holding themselves in readiness to fly 

 into a passion whenever their wishes are withstood. They thus 

 acquire a habit of " breaking out," to use a term familiar to the 

 warders of female prisons and lunatic asylums ; and though their 

 relatives and connections would describe their tempers by severe 

 epithets, yet if they had married masterful husbands their characters 

 might have developed more favourably. 



To recapitulate briefly, one set of influences tends to mix good 

 and bad tempers in a family at haphazard; another set tends to 

 assimilate them, so that they shall all be good or all be bad ; a 

 third set tends to divide each family into contrasted portions. 

 We have now to ascertain the facts and learn the results of these 

 opposing influences. 



In dealing with the distribution of temper in Fraternities, 1 we 



1 A Fraternity consists of the brothers of a family, and of the sisters after the 

 qualities of the latter have been transmuted to their Male Equivalents ; but as 

 no change in the Female values seems really needed, so none has been made in 

 respect to Temper. 



