124 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 
still more than for likeness, and for good reason. If 
her creatures are left unlike, it is so much the easier for 
her to find places for them in the crowded world of life. 
Moreover, unlikeness gives play for selection. She can 
save her favourites and discard her failures. 
So in the chromatin of his two parents Richard Roe 
finds his potentialities, his capacities, and his limita- 
tions. But latent in these are other 
capacities and other limitations handed 
down from other generations before them. Each grand- 
father and grandmother has some claim on Richard 
Roe, and behind these dead hands from older graves 
are still beckoning in his direction. The past will not 
let go, but with each generation the dust or the crust 
grows deeper over it, Moreover, these old claims grow 
less and less with time, because with each new genera- 
tion there are twice as many competitors. Besides this, 
as we shall see beyond, these past generations can make 
no claim on him except through the agency of ‘his 
own parents.* 
Atavism. 
* We may sum up Richard Roe’s inheritance by making use 
of the formule of algebra, a science which deals with unknown 
characters that bear definite relations to each other. 
Let A be the aggregate of species and race characters inherited 
from the father. Let A’ be the species and race characters inher- 
ited from the mother. Then a x as A = A’, will amount to 
Aagain. A forms the greater part of Richard Roe in numerical 
aggregate, but in the Anglo-Saxon race it is an invariable quan- 
tity, and therefore not of importance in making up the character 
by which we know him from his fellows. 
Let B be the recognisable peculiarities of the father, and B’ 
the recognisable peculiarities of the mother. How shall these be 
# 
divided? Obviously not more than a+ 2 
for a body can not be made up of peculiarities. We may infer 
from Galton’s studies that these figures are in excess of the 
should be expected, 
