At present, the answers to these and similar questions are far from adequate or satisfactory. The clearest case is probably that of the musician, for musical ability seems to rest upon some peculiar attribute of the brain. Some people can never learn to recognize different melodies, let along sing or play, regardless of the amount of training; while others have a keen sense of time, rhythm and harmony even without training. The most famous musical family of modern times started with Weit Bach, a baker of Presburg, Germany, about 1550, who found relaxation in music. His two sons commenced the unbroken line of musicians of the same name that lasted for nearly two centuries. They were all organists or church singers. In no other single family, perhaps, have so many musical geniuses appeared-twenty-nine in all. So, too, Mozart, Beethoven and Amati were members of musical families. Thorwaldsen, Vandyck, Murillo and Titian came from families of artists. With regard to other professions the evidence is conflicting though every one knows of families of lawyers, professors, physicians, as well as business men and cattle dealers. Yet where the son of a distinguished man attains eminence it is as often as not in some different field.

Strange as it seems at first human heredity was not much studied before the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and the would-be student of today finds it extremely difficult to get reliable information with reference to earlier generations, while laboratory experiment is out of the question. Moreover popular verdicts of men and women often rest on such superficial foundations that they have little value to the scientist. We must say, then, there is reason to believe that all sorts of mental ability

may be inherited, but social prestige rests upon so many foundations that real ability must not be inferred therefrom. Thus, there is no reason to doubt the general accuracy of Karl Pearson when he writes, after studying three or four thousand school children in Great Britain:

"I cannot free myself from the conception that underlying every psychical state there is a physical state, and from that conception there follows at once the conclusion that there must be a close association between the succession or recurrence of certain psychical states, which is what we judge mental and moral characteristics by, and an underlying physical conformation be it of brain or liver.

"We are forced, I think literally forced, to the general conclusion that the physical and psychical characters in man are inherited in the same manner, and with the same intensity. The average home environment, the average parental instinct is in itself part of the heritage of the stock and not an extraneous and additional factor emphasizing the resemblance between children of the same home.

"Geniality and probity and ability may be fostered by the home environment and by provision of good schools and well-equipped institutions for research, but that their origin, like health and muscle, is deeper than these things. They are bred and not created. That good stock breeds good stock is the commonplace of every farmer; that the strong man and woman have healthy children is widely recognized too, but we have left the moral and mental faculties as qualities for which we can provide amply by home environment and good education. . . .

"It is the stock itself which makes its home environ

ment, the education is of small service, unless it be applied to an intelligent race of men.'

" 18

So, too, Dr. F. A. Woods after studying the royal families of Europe writes:

66

Many people argue that great geniuses, coming as they frequently do from humble families, Franklin and Lincoln, for instance, discount our belief in mental heredity; when, on the other hand, these men should only strengthen our reliance in this same force. We should consider the thousands, indeed millions, of mediocrities, who have to be born from mediocrities, before one mind of the type of Franklin's is produced. That they rise superior to their circumstances is in itself a proof of the inborn nature of their minds and characters. A man of this sort represents a combination of the best from many ancestors. It would be possible in a great many throws to cast a large number of dice so that they would all fall aces. But here in certain regions of royalty as among the Montmorencys and Hohenzollerns where the dice are loaded, such a result may be expected in a large percentage of throws." 19

It is interesting to use Dr. Wood's estimate of mental rank and compare a few of the royal families of Europe. In the first the shaded figures represent those individuals put by Dr. Woods in the three highest grades while in the second chart all the black figures are below the sixth grade and only one rises to the seventh.

"If we compare the eight hundred odd persons who form the main body of this study with the world in generál, we cannot but be struck with the relatively large numbers of exceptional geniuses who have from time to

18 PEARSON, K. In Jour. Anthrop. Inst., Vol. XXXIII, p. 179 ff. 19 WOODS, F. A. Heredity in Royalty, p. 299.

INHERITANCE OF GREAT ABILITY 20

Shaded figures in 3 highest grades. Numbers in figures indicate grade.

time appeared in their genealogical charts and have taken their places as actual and undisputed leaders in many of the greatest movements in European history. Among the men alone, there are 25 in grades 9 and 10. These are the bearers of names of unquestioned distinction, names of geniuses who stand without superiors in the 20 WOODS, F. A. o. c., p. 72 ff.

6

INHERITANCE OF LOW ABILITY. BOURBONS IN SPAIN AFTER 1700 21 Shaded figures under Grade 6. Numbers indicate grade.

practical domains of war and government. Where else could we take eight hundred interrelated names at random and find twenty-five world geniuses?

"There is no doubt but that modern royalty, as a whole, has been decidedly superior to the average European in capacity; and we may say without danger of refutation, that the royal breed, considered as a unit, is superior to any other one family, be it that of noble or commoner." To this last claim many will take exception. 22

Out of each hundred males of the royal families, Dr. Woods puts the following 23 in each of the ten intellectual