6 INHERITANCE. Chap. XII 



a similar lock on the same side, and his mother on the opposite 

 side. But it is superfluous to give instances; every shade 

 of expression, which may often be seen alike in parents 

 and children, tells the same story. On what a curious com- 

 bination of corporeal structure, mental character, and trainino-, 

 must handwriting depend ! yet every one must have noted the 

 occasional close similarity of the handwriting in father and son, 

 although the father had not taught his son. A great collector 

 of franks assured me that in his collection there were several 

 franks of father and son hardly distinguishable except by their 

 dates. Hofacker, in Germany, remarks on the inheritance of hand- 



to 



o 



and it has even been asserted that English boy 

 write in France naturally cling to their English 1 



of writing. 8 Gait, gestures, voice, and general bear 



■£> 



inherited, as the illustrious Hunter and Sir A. Carlisle have 

 insisted. 9 My father communicated to me two or three striking- 

 instances, in one of which a man died during the early infancy 

 of his son, and my father, who did not see this son until grown 

 up and out of health, declared that it seemed to him as if his old 

 friend had risen from the grave, with all his highly peculiar 

 habits and manners. Peculiar manners pass into tricks, and 

 several instances could be given of their inheritance ; as in the 



often quoted, of the father who generally slept on his bacl 



with his right leg crossed over the left, and whose daug 



O"" "^& 



whilst an infant in the cradle, followed exactly the same habit, 

 though an attempt was made to cure her. 10 I will give one 

 instance which has fallen under my own observation, and which 

 is curious from being a trick associated with a peculiar state of 

 mind, namely, pleasurable emotion. A boy had the singular 

 habit, when pleased, of rapidly moving his fingers parallel to each 

 other, and, when much excited, of raising both hands, with 

 the fingers still moving, to the sides of his face on a level with 

 the eyes ; this boy, when almost an old man, could still hardly 

 resist this trick when much pleased, but from its absurdity 

 concealed it. He had eight children. Of these, a girl, when 



V 



8 Hofacker, • Ueber die Eigenschaf- < Med. Besearches,' p. 530. Sir A. Oar- 

 ten,' &c, 1828, s. 34. Eeport by Pariset lisle, ' Phil. Transact.,' 1814, p. 94. 



in ' Comptes Kendus/ 1847, p. 592. w Girou de Buzareignues, ' De la 



9 Hunter, as quoted in Harlan's Generation/ p. 2S2. 







