In considering the effects of inheritance, we will first pass in review those connected with the physical constitution. These are exceedingly common and universally known. Fortunately, not merely are evil qualities inherited, but beauty, health, vigor, and longevity also.
BEAUTY.
Good looks are characteristic of certain families. Alcibiades, the handsomest among the Grecians of his time, descended from ancestors remarkable for their beauty. So well and long has the desirable influence of inheritance in this respect been recognised, that there existed in Crete an ancient law which ordained that each year the most beautiful among the young men and women should be chosen and forced to marry, in order to perpetuate the type of their beauty. Irregularities of feature are transmitted from parent to child through many generations. The aquiline nose has existed some centuries, and is yet hereditary in the Bourbon family. The hereditary under-lip of the House of Hapsburg is another example. When the poet Savage speaks of
'The tenth transmitter of a foolish face,'
he scarcely exaggerates what is often seen in families where some strongly-marked feature or expression is long predominant or reappears in successive generations.
NECK AND LIMBS.
The form and length of the neck and limbs are frequently hereditary, as is also the height of the body. The union of two tall persons engenders tall children. The father of Frederick the Great secured for himself a regiment of men of gigantic stature, by permitting the marriage of his guards only with women of similar height. A tendency to obesity often appears in generation after generation of a family. Yet such cases are within the reach of medical art.
COMPLEXION.
Even the complexion is not exempt from this influence. Blondes ordinarily procreate blondes, and dark parents have dark-skinned children. An union in marriage of fair and dark complexions results in an intermediate shade in the offspring. Not always, however; for it has been asserted that the complexion chiefly follows that of the father. The offspring of a black father and a white mother is much darker than the progeny of a white father and a dark mother. In explanation of this fact, it has been said that the mother is not impressed by her own color, because she does not look upon herself, while the father's complexion attracts her attention, and thus gives a darker tinge to the offspring. Black hens frequently lay dark eggs; but the reverse is more generally found to be the case.