Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/120

 REVIEWS OF BOOKS GENERAL BOOKS AND BOOKS OF ANCIENT HISTORY Mental and Moral Heredity in Royalty. A Statistical Study in History and Psychology. By Frederick Adams Woods, M.D. (New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1906. Pp. viii, 312.) The author prefaces his treatise by saying that there has been much discussion concerning the relative importance of heredity, environment and free will in determining the intellectual and moral qualities of the individual; but that this discussion has led to no definite conclusions because no one of these possible sources of power has been studied with sufficient fullness of detail. A more searching and complete investiga- tion is desirable because if it can be shown that heredity is a more potent force in the moulding of human character and achievement than the acci- dents of surroundings, we shall be better qualified to determine what ought to be done and what can be done in the solution of some perplexing race and social problems. Concerning the great mass of mankind, however, no such investiga- tion is possible. It is one of the commonplaces of some schools of philo- sophical historians that stirring times, favorable opportunities, acute crises produce great geniuses. But they also produce many millions of mediocrities. And some critical periods pass without raising up Moham- meds and Luthers. Until the pedigrees of great groups of men have been tracked several generations and the mental and moral values of each unit in these pedigrees be approximately stated, until from data so obtained it be discovered that no formulas for heredity can be derived, and until, in case such formulas can be derived, it is proven that the ap- pearance of geniuses, imbeciles and degenerates is not in accordance with the expectations raised by those formulas, then and not until then, will it be possible to assert in any given case that heredity is not a controlling influence. The royal families of Europe constitute the only field where the material for the study of these questions can be had in sufficient quantity. Even here, however, one is led now and then into a blind alley, for in the construction of genealogical charts of many royal persons of modern times, one comes upon names in the family tree which have to be marked " obscure ", names about whose bearers nothing definite can be ascer- tained. Wherever possible, however, these persons are graded twice, in this work, in the scale of 10, once for character and again for intellect. These grades are arrived at by averaging the judgments given in the great biographical dictionaries and certain standard historical treatises, (i.o)