CHAPTER XIII 
THE LAW OF ANCESTRAL HEREDITY! 
The extent to which the offspring resembles the parent and the extent to 
which he resembles more remote ancestors - Chance of resembling a partic- 
ular individual ancestor - The individual a composite - The number “ two” 
The extent to which the offspring resembles the parent and 
the extent to which he resembles more remote ancestors. We 
have seen already that all individuals transmit and all individuals 
possess more unit characters than can possibly be fully developed 
and represented in visible form in their own personality ; that 
is, every race is rich in characters, — so rich that not all of them 
can be utilized in the make-up of any single individual. 
We understand, then, that the offspring gets all his char- 
acters from and through his immediate parents; there is no 
other source. We understand, too, that he gets not only those 
that were specially developed in the personality of the parents, 
but all others of the race as well, and that out of these the 
personality of the offspring will be developed. 
We understand, also, that the intensity of transmission is in 
proportion to intensity of possession, and this for the most part 
corresponds fairly well to the intensity of infusion of the racial 
characters among the back ancestors ; that is to say, if a char- 
acter is present in all the ancestors, it will almost certainly 
appear in the offspring, while if it is present in but half of the 
ancestry, the chances are even that it will be transmitted in the 
latent form. 
All things considered, therefore, we should not expect the off- 
spring to be /7’c the parent, unless the ancestry were so pure 
1 For a fuller discussion of this subject, see “ Principles of Breeding,” 
PP» 925-534: 
166 
