It is a matter of daily observation, that parents gifted with bright minds, cultivated by education, generally engender intelligent children; while the offspring of those steeped in ignorance are stupid from birth. It may be objected, that men the most remarkable in ancient or modern times, as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Shakspeare, Milton, Buffon, Cuvier, etc., have not transmitted their vast intellectual powers to their progeny. In explanation, it has been stated that what is known as genius is not transmissible. The creation of a man of genius seems to require a special effort of Nature, after which, as if fatigued, she reposes a long time before again making a similar effort. But it may well be doubted whether even those complex mental attributes on which genius and talent depend are not inheritable, particularly when both parents are thus endowed. That distinguished men do not more frequently have distinguished sons, may readily be accounted for when it is recollected that the inherited character is due to the combined influence of both parents. The desirable qualities of the father may therefore be neutralized in the offspring by the opposite or defective qualities of the mother. That contrasts in the disposition of parents are rather the rule than the exception, we have already shown. Every one tends to unite himself in friendship or love with a different character from his own, seeking thereby to supplement the qualities in which he feels his own nature to be deficient. The mother, therefore, may weaken, and perhaps obliterate, the qualities transmitted by the father. Again, the influence of some remote ancestors may make itself felt upon the offspring through the operation of the law of atavism, before alluded to, and thus prevent the children from equaling their parents in their natural endowments. Notwithstanding the workings of these opposing forces, and others which might be mentioned, we find abundant illustration of the hereditary nature of talent and character.
Of six hundred and five names occurring in a biographical dictionary devoted to men distinguished as great founders and originators, between the years 1453 and 1853, there were, as has been pointed out by Mr. Galton, no less than one hundred and two relationships, or one in six. Walford's Men of the Time contains an account of the distinguished men in England, the Continent, and America, then living. Under the letter A there are eighty-five names, and no less than twenty-five of these, or one in three and a half, have relatives also in the list; twelve of them are brothers, and eleven fathers and sons. In Bryan's Dictionary of Painters, the letter A contains three hundred and ninety-one names of men, of whom sixty-five are near relatives, or one in six; thirty-three of them are fathers and sons, and thirty are brothers. In Fétis's Biographie Universelle des Musiciens, the letter A contains five hundred and fifteen names, of which fifty are near relatives, or one in ten. Confining ourselves to literature alone, it has been found that it is one to six and a half that a very distinguished literary man has a very distinguished literary relative; and it is one to twenty-eight that the relation is father and son, or brother and brother, respectively. Among the thirty-nine Chancellors of England, sixteen had kinsmen of eminence; thirteen of them had kinsmen of great eminence. These thirteen out of thirty-nine, or one in three, are certainly remarkable instances of the influence of inheritance. A similar examination has been instituted in regard to the judges of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and other American States, with like results. The Greek poet Æschylus counted eight poets and four musicians among his ancestors. The greater part of the celebrated sculptors of ancient Greece descended from a family of sculptors. The same is true of the great painters. The sister of Mozart shared the musical talent of her brother. As there are reasons, to be detailed hereafter, for believing that the influence of the mother is even greater than that of the father, how vastly would the offspring be improved if distinguished men united themselves in marriage to distinguished women for generation after generation!
INFLUENCE OF FATHERS OVER DAUGHTERS; OF MOTHERS OVER SONS.
We have already called attention to the parts of the physical organization transmitted by the father and by the mother. It would seem, moreover, that each parent exercises a special influence over the child according to its sex. The father transmits to the daughters the form of the head, the framework of the chest and of the superior extremities, while the conformation of the lower portion of the body and the inferior extremities is transmitted by the mother. With the sons this is reversed. They derive from the mother the shape of the head and of the superior extremities, and resemble the father in the trunk and inferior extremities. From this it therefore results, that boys procreated by intelligent women will be intelligent, and that girls procreated by fathers of talent will inherit their mental capacity. The mothers of a nation, though unseen and unacknowledged in the halls of legislation, determine in this subtle manner the character of the laws.
History informs us that the greater part of the women who have been celebrated for their intelligence, reflected the genius of their fathers. Arete, the most celebrated woman of her time, on account of the extent of her knowledge, was the daughter of the distinguished philosopher Aristippus, disciple of Socrates. Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, was a daughter of Scipio. The daughter of the Roman emperor Caligula was as cruel as her father. Marcus Aurelius inherited the virtues of his mother, and Commodus the vices of his. Charlemagne shut his eyes upon the faults of his daughters, because they recalled his own. Genghis-Khan, the renowned Asiatic conqueror, had for his mother a warlike woman. Tamerlane, the greatest warrior of the fourteenth century, was descended from Genghis-Khan by the female side. Catherine de Medicis was as crafty and deceitful as her father, and more superstitious and cruel. She had two sons worthy of herself,—Charles ix., who shot the Protestants, and Henry iii., who assassinated the Guises. Her daughter, Margaret of Valois, recalled her father by her gentle manners. The cruel deeds of Alexander VI., the dark records of which will for ever stain the pages of history, are only rivaled in atrocity by those of his children, the infamous Borgias. Arete, Hypatia, Madame de Staël, and George Sand,—all four had philosophers for their fathers. The mother of Bernardo Tasso had the gift of poetry. Buffon often speaks of the rich imagination of his mother. The poet Burns, 'Rare Ben Jonson,' Goethe, Walter Scott, Byron, and Lamartine,—all were born of women remarkable for their vivacity and brilliancy of language. Byron, in his journal, attributes his hypochondria to a hereditary taint derived from his mother, who was its victim in its most furious form; and her father 'was strongly suspected of suicide.' He was said to have resembled more his maternal grandfather than any of his father's family. The daughter of Molière was like her father in her wit and humor. Beethoven had for a maternal grandmother an excellent musician. The mother of Mozart gave the first lessons to her son. A crowd of composers have descended from John Sebastian Bach, who long stood unrivaled as a performer on the organ, and composer for that instrument. It may be remarked here, that it is almost invariably true that the ability or inability to acquire a knowledge of music is derived from the ancestry. Parents who cannot turn a tune or tell one note from another, bring forth children equally unmoved 'with concord of sweet sounds.' Examples could easily be adduced at still greater length, illustrating the direct influence of the father over the daughter, and of the mother over the son. Those given will suffice.
INFLUENCE Of EDUCATION OVER INHERITED QUALITIES.
In correcting the evil effects of inheritance on the mind, education plays a very important part. A child born with a tendency to some vice or intellectual trait, may have this tendency entirely overcome, or at least modified, by training. So, also, virtues implanted by nature may be lost during the plastic days of youth, in consequence of bad associations and bad habits.
Education can therefore do much to alter inherited mental and moral qualities. Can it be invoked to prevent the transmission of undesirable traits, and secure the good? Everything that we have at birth is a heritage from our ancestors. Can virtuous habits be transmitted? Can we secure virtues in our children by possessing them ourselves? Science sadly says, through her latest votaries, that we are scarcely more than passive transmitters of a nature we have received, and which we have no power to modify. It is only after exposure during several generations to changed conditions or habits, that any modification in the offspring ensues. The son of an old soldier learns his drill no more quickly than the son of an artisan. We must therefore come to the conclusion with Mr. Galton, that to a great extent our own embryos have sprung immediately from the embryos whence our parents were developed, and these from the embryos of their parents, and so on for ever. Hence we are still barbarians in our nature. We show it in a thousand ways. Children, who love to dig and play in the dirt, have inherited that instinct from untold generations of ancestors. Our remote forefathers were barbarians, who dug with their nails to get at the roots on which they lived. The delicately-reared child reverts to primeval habits. In like manner, the silk-haired, parlor-nurtured spaniel springs from the caressing arms of its mistress, to revel in the filth of the roadside. It is the breaking out of inherited instinct.
TRANSMISSION OF DISEASE.
Perhaps the most important part of the subject of inheritance, is that which remains for us to consider in relation to the transmission of disease, or of a predisposition to it.