K. Pearson 
133 
In the first place it seemed to me absolutely impossible to get a quantitative 
measure of the resemblance in moral and mental characters between parent and 
oflfspring. You must not compare the moral character of a child with those of its 
adult parents. You can only estimate the resemblance between the child and what 
its parents were as cliildi'en. Here the grandparent is the only available source of 
information ; but not only does age affect clearness of memory and judgment, the 
partiality of the relative is a factor which can hardly be corrected and allowed for. 
If we take, on the other hand, jJarents and offspring as adults, it is difficult to 
appeal to anything but the vox populi for an estimate of their relative moral 
merits, and this vox is generally silent unless both are men of marked public 
importance. For these and other reasons I gave up any hope of measuring 
parental resemblance in moral character. I confined my attention entirely to 
fraternal resemblance. My argument was of this kind. Regarding one species 
only, then if fraternal resemblance for the moral and mental characters be less 
than, equal to, or greater than fraternal resemblance for the physical characters, 
we may surely argue that parental inheritance for the former set of characters is 
less than, equal to, or greater than that for the latter set of characters. 
In the next place it seemed impossible to obtain moderately impartial esti- 
mates of the moral and mental characters of adults. Who but relatives and close 
friends know them well enough to form such an estimate, and which of us will 
put upon paper, for the use of strangers, a true account of the temper, probity 
and popularity of our nearest ? Even if relatives and friends could be trusted to 
be impartial, the discovery of the preparation of schedules by the subjects of obser- 
vation might have ruptured the peace of households and broken down life-long 
friendships. Thousands of schedules could not be filled up in this manner. The 
inquiry, therefore, resolved itself into an investigation of the moral and mental 
characters of children. Here we could replace the partial parent or relative by 
the fairly impartial school teacher. A man or woman who deals yearly with forty 
to a hundred new children, rapidly forms moderately accurate classifications, and 
it was to this source of information that I determined to appeal. 
I would refer at once to an objection, which I think is not real, but which 
I know will arise in the minds of some. It will be said that the temper, vivacity 
and probity of children is not a measure of the like qualities in the adult. The shy 
boy at school is not necessarily a shy man on the floor of the House of Commons 
or confronting a native race ou the north-west frontier. Granted absolutely. But 
what we are comparing is what that boy was at school, with what his brother 
and sister may have been. We can legitimately compare for purposes of heredity 
a character of the larval stage of two insects, although that character disappears 
entirely when both are fully developed as imago. 
It is possible that some allowance ought to be made for changes during the 
school period in the mental and moral characters, but I have not found that those 
characters change very substantially in their percentages with the age of the 
school children, the bulk of whom lie between 10 and 14. Accordingly, while 
