May 4, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



693 



Mental and Moral Heredity in Royalty. By 

 Frederick Adams Woods^ M.D. New York, 

 Henry Holt. 1906. Pp. viii + 312. 

 Dr. Woods presents here in book form his 

 investigations, reported originally in The 

 Popular Science Monthly, of the family re- 

 semblances and of the comparative importance 

 of original nature and environment as deter- 

 minants of human achievement in the ease of 

 some six hundred related individuals. These 

 were selected at random and graded by at 

 least approximately objective criteria for intel- 

 lect and also for morality. Dr. Woods states 

 the sources of his information and the nature 

 of his procedure clearly and in full detail, 

 80 that any one who doubts his conclusions 

 can repeat the research. 



These conclusions are presented in two 

 ways, first by a series of descriptions of the 

 facts of heredity in the leading stocks of 

 European royalty and second by a more gen- 

 eral account of the amount of resemblance 

 found in related individuals and of the evi- 

 dence which proves this resemblance to be due 

 almost exclusively to the similarity in condi- 

 tions of birth rather than of breeding. 



The descriptions of royal houses make up 

 fourteen chapters, all excellent in substance 

 but necessarily somewhat unattractive and 

 difficult to follow in parts unless the reader 

 already knows the history of European courts 

 well or has a pronounced taste for genealogy. 

 One hundred and four most interesting por- 

 traits accompany these chapters. The com- 

 ments on general issues, such as the supposed 

 ' progressive degeneration of royal families, the 

 ' Hapsburg lip ' and prepotency, and the corre- 

 lation of the eminence of ruler with the pros- 

 perity of the ruled in the case of Portugal, 

 are both excellent in substance and interesting 

 and relieve the monotony of individual de- 

 scriptions. In the general summary given in 

 the two closing chapters, the following esti- 

 mates of resemblance are given : 



In In- In Mor- 

 tellect. ality. 

 Resemblances of offspring to father .3007 .2983 

 Resemblances of offspring to grand- 

 father 1606 .175 



Resemblances of offspring to great- 

 grandfather 1528 



The resemblance of husband to wife was 

 found to be only .08 (with a possible error of 

 .076) in the case of intellect. 



The resemblance of intellect and morality 

 within the same individual was .3403. 



Dr. Woods gives as evidence that similarities 

 in original nature are the cause of at least 

 nine tenths of the resemblance in intellect 

 and, perhaps, of an approximately equal pro- 

 portion of the resemblance in morality the 

 following facts: The resemblance to the ma- 

 ternal great-grandfather equals .1528; the 

 likeness in morality to the maternal grand- 

 father is as great as to the paternal grand- 

 father; eldest sons who inherit the opportun- 

 ities of a sovereign show no higher achieve- 

 ments than their brothers. 



Dr. Woods is convinced that alternate in- 

 heritance is the rule in mental qualities and 

 even uses this as an accepted fact in arguing 

 that environment must be comparatively un- 

 important because children of the same nurture 

 often differ markedly in intellect and morals. 

 He fails, however, to submit the matter to any 

 of the tests by which blended and alternate 

 inheritance can be distinguished. 



There are throughout certain matters of 

 method and of interpretation in respect to 

 which historians and psychologists will differ 

 with Dr. Woods. The only ones of much im- 

 portance are his ignoring of the fact that all 

 his data on morality concern moral super- 

 iority or inferiority in comparison to the 

 status of one period of civilization rather 

 than absolute morality, his possibly hasty ac- 

 ceptance of alternate inheritance in mental 

 and moral qualities and his failure to give 

 in any convenient form the data which will 

 permit any one to repeat the purely statistical 

 portion of his work by possibly better methods. 

 It is to be hoped with respect to the latter 

 point that he will soon print somewhere tables 

 of the individual relationships from which his 

 mass results are calculated. 



On the whole we must all admire the energy 

 and persistence which enabled Dr. Wood to 

 carry through so elaborate a study and the 

 general sanity and impartiality of spirit with 

 which he has made his inferences. In the 

 reviewer's opinion precise objective measure- 



