the conjectural to the scientific state. It supplies the psychologist and the moralist with materials-with observations and experiments. But this is only the beginning of science, not its perfection. And, indeed, how could it be expected, in the present state of the moral sciences, that figures could solve every problem? The philosophers of the present century have shown (and the positivist school have performed a fair proportion of the work) that the sciences are not isolated systems, of doctrine, each detached from each, but that there exists among them an hierarchical subordination, so that the more complex rest on the more simple, and presuppose them. The mathematical, physical, biological, moral, and social sciences represent so many phases of a continuous process, which advances from the simple to the complex. Social phenomena presuppose thought and sensation; these presuppose life; life presupposes physical and chemical conditions; physical and chemical facts presuppose mathematical conditions, time, space, and quantity, which are simply the most vague and general conditions of existence. In this series of an increasing complexity, and of a decreasing comprehensiveness, it would be folly to imagine that the superior science could exist before the inferior science were constituted. But quantitative determination exists only in mathematics, and to some extent in physics; it has not yet penetrated into biology; how, then, could it have attained to the moral and social sciences? It is, perhaps, doubtful if it will ever reach them. Number is an instrument at once too coarse to unravel the delicate texture of these phenomena, and too fragile to penetrate deeply into their complicated and multiple nature. With all its apparent precision it stops at the surface of things, for it can give us only quantity, which is a very unimportant thing as compared with quality. In short, this statistical research into heredity fails to do what it promised. Yet, by comparing facts and grouping figures, it arrives at the same result as ourselves, but by another route: it establishes psychological heredity, and the objective reality of its laws. CHAPTER IV. EXCEPTIONS TO THE LAW OF HEREDITY. I. THE study of the laws of heredity would not be complete without an examination of the exceptions. Nothing gives a clearer notion of the nature of a law, than a knowledge of its anomalies. Here, especially, this is indispensable, for the infractions of hereditary transmission are so numerous and so striking, that from time to time we ask with hesitation if the law exists at all beneath the phenomena which conceal it. On considering these difficulties, we shall understand why the author of the most famous work upon this subject should have set up over against heredity an equal and contrary law, that of innateness, which as he considers explains all the exceptions. Before discussing this hypothesis, and showing how heredity may explain the exceptions no less than the regular cases, we will, as usual, begin by a statement of facts. In the physiological world, these exceptions are readily shown in the internal or external structure, the physiognomy, the stature, constitution or temperament. Though, generally, brothers and sisters have a family likeness, it is not rare that there is between them such a diversity of feature and countenance that no external sign would indicate their common blood. This difference is sometimes seen even in twins. Sinibaldi asks 'how it comes that at Rome ugly boors and women from the dregs of the people, with hideous features, produce sons and daughters of surprising beauty, and of such perfect form that their equals are not to be found in the palaces of nobles, or in the courts of princes.' 1 Fathers and mothers of erect form, none of whose families have ever been misshapen, produce children' hunchbacked and deformed. Deformed parents have had perfectly straight children. Parents of middle height sometimes beget tall children, while other 1 Might not this be a fact of atavism? Bébé, parents, of good station, in good health, and belonging to families of good constitution, beget children of very low stature. A man had by his wife eight children, of whom four were dwarfs. the famous dwarf of King Stanislas, and whose height was thirtythree inches, was born in the Vosges of well-formed, vigorous, healthy parents. The celebrated Polish gentleman, Borwslaski, whose height was twenty-eight inches, had a brother and sister, dwarfs like himself, and three other brothers, each five feet six inches in stature.1 Such idiosyncrasies as the predominance of some one organ, one of a viscus, or even of an entire system of organs, likewise present curious instances of spontaneity. Family constitutions, as P. Lucas remarks, very often begin with individuals, and the most rooted constitutions, those that are most general in families, are yet not those of all the members. We may quote especially, as remarkable facts of spontaneity, those called by Zimmermann exceptions in temperament. He has gathered several examples; as, for instance, of a man who suffered extreme agonies when his nails were clipped; another when his face was washed with a sponge. For some persons coffee is an emetic, jalap a constipant. Hachn could not eat more than seven or eight strawberries without falling into convulsions, and Tissot could not swallow sugar without vomiting. But there is no need to cite a large number of such facts, if the reader will bear in mind that peculiarities of organization-congenital or natural varieties-are necessarily exceptions to the law of heredity. Thus polydactylism, ectrodactylism, harelip, and all deformities of a similar nature, begin by a deviation from the specific type. The celebrated case of Edward Lambert, 'the manporcupine,' may be remembered, whose parents were healthy and well formed, but he transmitted his singular carapace to his children. Thus we see from facts that heredity imposes its law even on its own exceptions. Among animals all races which are not due to intercrossing, but which spring from spontaneous variation, are at once the result of innateness and heredity: of the former for their origin, of the latter 1 Lucas, i. 108; Burdach, ii. 427. for their continuance. Thus it is with the hornless bulls, or mochos, of the Argentine Republic, with rumpless fowls, bantams, etc. If we pass from the physiological to the psychological order we shall find no less striking instances of spontaneity. Phrenologists have accumulated facts to show that among animals, where we see only uniformity of habits, characters, and physical aptitudes, there exist between members of the same family individual differences, which, as they do not result from education, are due to spontaneity. In a litter of wolf cubs taken from their dam, says Gall, and which were all brought up in the same way, one became tame and gentle like a dog, while the others preserved their natural savagery. In twins there sometimes occur extreme contrasts of tastes, propensities, and ideas. This was observed by the ancients : Castor gaudet equis, ovo prognatus eodem What is still more curious is, that double monsters, when they survive, may possess different psychical constitutions. Serres observed this in the case of Ritta and Christina, the female twins of Presburg, who were united by the inferior lumbar vertebræ. They differed completely in character. One was handsome, gentle, sedate, with sensuous character little marked; the other ugly, illconditioned, quarrelsome, and of strong passions. Her outbursts. of rage against her sister, and their disputes became so frequent, that in the convent where Cardinal von Saxe-Zeits had placed them, the inmates were compelled to give them in charge of a watcher, who never left them alone. Notwithstanding these quarrels, they lived to the age of twenty-two. It has been said that the law of spontaneity cannot be disputed, since we see the sons of great men unworthy of them. By what singular freak of nature did two fools like Paxalos and Xantippos, and a maniac like Clinias, spring from Pericles? or from the upright Aristippos, the infamous Lysimachos? from the grave Thucydides, a silly Milesias or a stupid Stephanos? from the temperate Phocion, the dissolute Phocus ? from Sophocles, Aristarchos, Socrates, and Themistocles unworthy sons? And the like differences are to be found in Roman history : Cicero and his son, Germanicus and Caligula, Vespasian and Domitian, Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. In modern history, 'it is enough to mention the sons of Henri IV.,' says Lucas, 'of Louis XIV., of Cromwell, of Peter the Great; as also those of La Fontaine, Crébillon, Goethe, and Napoleon.' 1 We do not, however, accept these cases as facts conclusive of spontaneity. The greater part of them are doubtful, and many of them are false. It is not enough to say, Such an illustrious man has mediocre sons, in order to conclude that therefore heredity is at fault. A son who does not inherit from his father, may perfectly do so from his mother. As we have already seen, this case is so frequent that some authors have regarded it as a rule. Among the examples cited by Lucas, there are some in which the maternal heredity is clear, as Commodus, Louis XIII., Goethe, Napoleon. And it is probable in the case of others in the list, especially those taken from Greek history, that if we had precise data regarding the wives of those great men, or their immediate ancestors, it would be easy to show that these obscure or dissolute personages have inherited from their mothers, or of their grand-parents. Thus heredity would recover a large number of facts which have been wrongfully removed from its domain. However, we would not deny that there are exceptions, and very important exceptions. But the conclusive way to establish them is, not to show that a great man has mediocre children, which proves nothing, but that a great man has sprung suddenly. from an obscure family. Nor is this case rare. 'Often,' says Burdach, 'the parents possess very limited intellectual faculties, while all their children display abilities of the first order. From simple parents often spring those superior men, those minds whose influence is felt for thousands of years, and whose presence was a need for humanity at the moment when they entered life. greatest men have belonged to lowly, poor, or obscure families.' In the negro race, whose lack of capacity is recognized, anthropologists have noted individuals possessed of remarkable faculties. Toussaint L'Ouverture was certainly no ordinary politician. According to Pritchard, even the stupid Esquimaux and Greenlanders can produce men of intelligence. 1 i. 153. The |