T56 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIX. No. 476 



tence, and who were separated by from five to seven genera- 

 tions; again, by similar judgments passed, not upon indi- 

 vidual " Does," but upon the " Does " as a whole, by women 

 who had married " Does," having no knowledge of each 

 other's existence, and whose judgments had been passed upon 

 different generations of '' Does." 



If " family traits " are a delusion to be explained away by 

 the dilution of a geometrical chart amounting to one two 

 hundred and fiftieth in eight generations, why can indepen- 

 dent outside observers, the Does themselves and the women 

 who marry Does, recognize a Doe character in the eighth 

 generation? It is simply because heredity does not involve 

 geometrical elements, in reality is only very inadequately 

 represented by geometry. 



Of what, then, does heredity consist? Of a vast number 

 of extremely subtle influences determined by laws as yet but 

 dimly comprehended, but few of which have as yet found 

 adequate expression. Among others there are three laws or 

 principles for which we do not know any name, but which, 

 in their effects, are generally recognized among breeders of 

 animals. First among these may be named the influence 

 of race, which among breeders of animals would be equiva- 

 lent to " a breed " and the varieties within it. A genealog- 

 ical register of a family bearing a surname found among 

 the seventeenth century settlers of New England may be 

 fitly compared to the pedigree of any family of thorough- 

 breds, as, for instance, the St. Lamberts among Jerseys, or 

 the Douglas among Ayrshires. It is often said that human 

 beings are as to their breeding mongrels; but such a statement 

 is not generally true, nor is it particularly true when applied 

 to the better class of families who from the English middle 

 class came to this country 250 years ago, and have here with a 

 goodly showing of self-respect intermarried almost or quite 

 exclusively in their own rank of social, religious, and political 

 race. There has thus grown up iinder unwritten social cus- 

 toms a race, or breed, of New England citizens of pure Eng- 

 lish ancestry as carefully bred as to race and as to families 

 within the race as any breed of thoroughbred cattle, a cen- 

 tury older than the oldest breed in the world. Many of 

 these families run back for several centuries in England be- 

 fore they emigrated to this country. We may, therefore, 

 expect to 6nd, and do find if we know where to look for 

 them, the same effects of race that are observed in thorough- 

 bred cattle, namely, persistency of race types as to the whole 

 and of family types as to families. This persistency in the 

 race is maintained through the persistency of the family 

 type, and the family type is perpetuated by breeders through 

 conformity with biological principles that, so far as is known, 

 are active among all domesticated animals, and man con- 

 sidered as an animal. 



It is a well-recognized fact that the first pregnancy of a 

 female is of much greater importance as determining the 

 character of her offspring than any and all others, and also 

 that the influence of the male as determining the character 

 of the offspring increases with each successive pregnancy of 

 the female by the same male. Every breeder of cattle knows 

 that a pure-bred heifer that is first coupled with a mongrel 

 bull is ruined for bi'eeding purposes, as the impression and 

 characteristics of the first male will appear in the offspring 

 of every succeeding pregnancy. A mare that is first coupled 

 with a jack and gives birth to a mule will afterwards, when 

 coupled with a stallion, give birth to horses with long ears 

 and scant tails and saddle-marks across the shoulders and 

 stripes upon the legs resembling mules. Horses marked in 

 this way are very common in regions where mules are pro- 



duced. A very handsome Morgan mare was once owned by 

 an acquaintance of the writer that possessed unusual speed 

 and great endurance. The condition of her udder showed 

 that she had once borne a foal. She was coupled with a 

 very fine thoroughbred stallion, and brought forth a perfectly 

 worthless Canadian scrub, without a single characteristic of 

 either parent. 



Among human beings the infrequent marriage of widows 

 as compared with the whole number of marriages renders a 

 reference to examples in demonstration of this law of hered- 

 ity somewhat difRoult. Cases are not wanting, however, 

 where women of high character have unfortunately married 

 profligate first husbands, and have sought in a second mar- 

 riage with men of honor to realize the happiness of which 

 they had been deprivet', only to see in bitterness the vices of 

 the first husband return to curse them in the offspring of the 

 second union. In less unfortunate marriages of this char- 

 acter the father fails to recognize in the aliens around his 

 board either the virtues or vices of his kindred, and the per- 

 sonal appearance of his children is as foreign as their other 

 characteristics. 



The conditions under which animals are bred offer but 

 few opportunities to demonstrate the increasing influence of 

 the same male through successive impregnation of the same 

 female. Among human beings illustrations are very nu- 

 merous. Certain aspects of this case — perhaps the lowest 

 — the marriage of colored women with white men and col- 

 ored mi n with white women, are the most remarkable. 

 Among the children of such unions the influence of the 

 white man upon the colored woman produces a series of 

 types with more or less strongly marked negro features and 

 a successively lighter skin until a nearly white negro is pro- 

 duced, an example of which we once saw in Louisville, Ky., 

 much more repulsive in appearance than a veritable negro. 

 When a colored man marries a white woman a series of in- 

 creasingly black children is the result. The children of such 

 unions are in every sense mongrels, and are found to resem- 

 ble in many respects mongrels among animals. 



In every family that can be studied in successive genera- 

 tions the action of this principle explains many seemingly 

 inexplicable facts. To go back to the descendants of John 

 Doe, we have asserted without any fear of possible contra- 

 diction that there are ' ' family traits " that may be observed 

 among those who are separated from a common ancestor by 

 six or seven generations. In one case among them a most 

 extraordinary personal likeness was preserved through three 

 generations. They were the fifth, sixth, and seventh gen- 

 erations from John Doe; they were the fifth, third, and 

 fourth children of their respective parents. In the eighth 

 generation the type was continued in the first child, but it is 

 much less marked, and in the ninth generation, the son be- 

 ing the second child, with the influence of the mother very 

 strong. Still, in both the eighth and ninth generations the 

 Doe traits are unmistakably present. In the ninth genera- 

 tion the fourth child is a daughter, and generally admitted 

 to be a Doe in every fibre of her being. Here is another 

 case from the Does. In the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth 

 generations a daughter has appeared in the relations of niece, 

 aunt, great-aunt, and great-great-aunt. We have known 

 them all. In the sixth generation she was the second child, 

 in the seventh the sixth child, in the eighth the fifth child, 

 and in the ninth the third child. They were and are all 

 lighter in complexion than the others of their respective 

 families, with a peculiar cast of features, resembling each 

 other more than they resemble their mothers or sisters. They 



