THE LAWS OF DESCENT in 



the two or three who were descended from professional parents 

 could possibly be investigated, we should find that at some past 

 period their families were descended from an agricultural stock 

 that had drifted into city life. The same will be found to hold 

 good with all trades and professions in the majority of cases ; 

 but as demonstrated by the examples given hereafter of milk- 

 ing cattle (see Book II., Chapter V.), the exceptions to the rule 

 are often also the exceptionally efficient, and most proficient 

 cases of capability of genius. 



This is why though in the majority of instances the largest 

 number of statesmen, doctors, lawyers, parsons and soldiers, 

 etc., are descended from families who have like ancestry; yet 

 it often happens that the most brilliant success is descended 

 from a family which is the one we would least expect to pro- 

 duce it. This is owing to the fact that it is probably a long 

 throwback on one side which gives a larger fund of memory 

 of past experiences combined with a mind that is also a throw- 

 back to a dual ancestry in the same family who have had 

 experiences capable of developing another class of mind. Thus 

 a person whose brain throws back to an ancestry made up of 

 both imaginative and comprehensive minds (see Book I., 

 Chapters XI. and XII.) will give a combined result capable of 

 producing experiences both of observation and imagination, and 

 the possessor thereof will be a superior soldier, parson, inven- 

 tor or farmer. Whereas a mind that throws back to an 

 ancestry of students, men of business or professionals on the 

 one side, and a highly comprehensive ancestry on the other 

 side, may produce by the dual combination of the two classes 

 of mind a highly efficient statesman, lawyer, solicitor, judge, 

 or business manager or mathematician. 



Now God in His wisdom, when he gave mankind the power 

 of imagination to make the civilisation of the world possible, 

 withdrew the power of memory from the minds of men. This 

 is restored in the following manner : whereas animals are 

 allowed to reproduce the memory of their forbears, in the case 

 of mankind it is only returned as occasion arises when he 

 meets with like circumstances, that require certain knowledge 

 of which his ancestors have had experience. He is then 

 able to think with the knowledge of the experiences of his dead 

 ancestors by recalling the memory of their acts, but is only 

 able to recall the experiences and thoughts of those who 



