174 BIOLOGY OF DEATH 



extensive investigations on the inheritance of physical 

 characters in man. 



In Table 20 are given the values of the parental 

 correlations for the four physical characters — stature, 

 span, forearm length, and eye color. Now it is obvious 



TABLE 20 

 Parental inheritance of ■physical characters in man. (Pearson) 



Pair Organ Correlation 



Father and Son Stature .51 



Father and Son Span .45 



Father and Son Forearm 42 



Father and Son Eye color 55 



Father and Daughter Stature 51 



Father and Daughter Span 45 



Father and Daughter Forearm 42 



Father and Daughter Eye color 44 



Mother and Son Stature .49 



Mother and Son Span .46 



Mother and Son Forearm .41 



Mother and Son Eye color .48 



Mother and Daughter Stature .51 



Mother and Daughter Span .45 



Mother and Daughter Forearm 42 



Mother and Daughter Eye color 51 



that the differences of environmental forces impinging 

 upon the various members of a homogeneous group of 

 middle class English families (from which source the 

 data for these correlations were drawn) can by no pos- 

 sibility be great enough to affect sensibly the stature, the 

 arm-length, or the eye color of the adults of such families. 

 It would be preposterous to assert that the resemblance 

 between parents and offspring in respect of eye color is 

 due solely, or even sensibly, to similarity of environment. 

 It is due to heredity and substantially nothing else. 

 Now the average value of the 16 parental coefficients for 

 the inheritance of physical characters shown in the table is 



r=.4675 



