Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 61.djvu/41

Rh may be determined. "Of the individual we can assert nothing as certain, only state the probable."

It is evident from these laws that, if any fond parents feel that they are in any way remarkable, their apparently remarkable offspring are on an average only two thirds as remarkable as they themselves. Also if there are any fond sons or daughters who rely on really gifted parents for their standing among their fellows, the sooner they begin to look to themselves to make up by individual effort their probable loss by the law of regression the better, for, on an average they are but two thirds as gifted as their parents. I should not mention this fool-killing law if it did not have its bright side. If any individual feels it in him to do and be something, a mediocre parentage need not discourage him, for, on the average, exceptional individuals, as we all think ourselves to be, exceed the average of humanity by one half as much again as their parents exceeded this average. (Fig. 3.)

It is a reassuring fact that, starting from any standpoint above the average, our relatives are on the average not quite equal to us. Moreover, a gifted individual is more likely to be the exceptional offspring of mediocre parents than the average offspring of gifted parents. "Among mankind we trust largely for our exceptional men to extreme variations occurring among the commonplace."