Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 60.djvu/233

Rh theoretical, that the genetic center is not and cannot be identical with the parental center, but is always more mediocre, owing to the combination of ancestral influences—which are generally mediocre—with the purely parental ones. It also shows that the regression from the parental to the genetic center, in the case of stature at least, would amount to two thirds under the conditions we are now supposing. The regression is indicated in the diagram by converging lines which are directed towards the same point below, but are stopped at one third of the distance on the way to it. The contents of each parental class are supposed to be concentrated at the foot of the median axis of that class, this being the vertical line that divides its contents into equal parts. Its position is approximately, but not exactly, half-way between the divisions that bound it, and is as easily calculated for the extreme classes, which have no outer terminals, as for any of the others. These median points are respectively taken to be the positions of the parental centers of the whole of each of the classes; therefore the positions attained by the converging lines that proceed from them at the points where they are stopped, represent the genetic centers. From these the filials disperse to the right and left with a 'spread' that can be shown to be three quarters that of the parentages. Calculation easily determines the number of the filials that fall into the class in which the filial center is situated, and of those that spread into the classes on each side. When the parental contributions from all the classes to each filial class are added together they will express the distribution of the quality among the whole of the offspring. Now it will be observed in the table that the numbers in the classes of the offspring are identical with those of the parents, when they are reckoned to the nearest whole percentage, as should be the case according to the hypothesis. Had the classes been narrower and more numerous, and if the calculations had been carried on to two more places of decimals, the correspondence would have been identical to the nearest ten thousandth. It was unnecessary to take the trouble of doing this, as the table affords a sufficient basis for what I am about to say. Though it does not profess to be more than approximately true in detail, it is certainly trustworthy in its general form, including as it does the effects of regression, filial dispersion, and the equation that connects a parental generation with a filial one when they are statistically alike. Minor corrections will be hereafter required, and can be applied when we have a better knowledge of the material. In the meantime it will serve as a standard table of descent from each generation of a people to its successor.

I shall now use the table to show the economy of concentrating our attention upon the highest classes. We will therefore trace the origin