Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 4.djvu/72

62 been chanter, and then master in the same chapel. Rossini's parents played music at fairs.

We find almost as effectual and continuous an intervention of heredity in the transmission of passions and sentiments of a very different order—those which incline to vice. The liking for strong drink, habits of debauch, a passion for gambling, acquire in some persons a degree of force which can be accounted for only by some fatal organic predisposition derived from their ancestors. "A lady with whom I was acquainted," says Gama Machado, "and who possessed a large fortune, was possessed of a passion for gambling, and passed whole nights at play: she died young, of a pulmonary complaint. Her eldest son, who was in appearance the image of his mother, had the same passion for play. He died of consumption, like his mother, and about the same age. His daughter, who resembled him, inherited the same tastes, and died young." The heredity of a disposition for theft, rape, murder, and suicide, has been proved in several instances.

In proportion as you rise above the purely physiological and pathological regions to those where the mind's activity takes a larger part, heredity is found to lose force and constancy of action. There have been families of scientists—the Cassinis, Jussieus, Bernouillis, Darwins, Saussures, Geoffroys, Pictets. In literature and erudition, the names of Estienne and Grotius, and others, occur. The Mortemarts were famous for their wit. A genius for statesmanship or for generalship has sometimes been perpetuated for several generations in certain families. On the whole, these cases of the transmission of psychical qualities are not frequent. Their being so carefully noted and so set in relief is apparently due to the fact that they are not of common occurrence; and besides, in many of these cases, education had probably more to do than heredity.

Some years ago there appeared a book entitled "Phrenyogenie," in which is to be found, side by side with many chimerical and paradoxical statements, one reflection worthy of attention, and this all the more because it takes account of a peculiarity which appears to have escaped the physiologists hitherto. The author of that book, M. Bernard Moulin, strives to prove that children are living photographs of their parents, as they were at the moment of conception. According to him, the parents transmit to the children the tastes and aptitudes, the spontaneous or the elicited exercise of which was then at the maximum. The broad conclusions which Moulin draws from his researches, as to the art of procreating superior children, may perhaps call forth a smile, but the facts cited by him in support of his views are curious. Here are a few of them: Nine months before the birth of Napoleon I., Corsica was all in confusion. The celebrated Paoli, at the head of an army of citizens which he himself had raised, was endeavoring to put an end to the civil war, and to prevent an invasion by foreigners. Charles Bonaparte, his aid-de-camp and secretary, displayed great