Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/450

446. The Darwinian law of the origin and descent of man has undoubtedly indirectly contributed to a growing belief in the force of heredity and has acted as a stimulus to its more exact study. Scientists are assembling facts, and making accurate measurements where once they were content with vague arguments and theories.

The writings of Sir Francis Galton show that among Europeans a large percentage of the most eminent men (about half the entire number) have been closely related to other more or less eminent persons. This, however, leaves the question open how far unequal opportunities, differences of education, and social influence may have favored the close relatives of distinguished men.

In Europe the caste system counts for much, and family patronage may be thought to be at the bottom of many a public recognition of distinction. But it can not be due to anything characteristically European that so many of the great men of the older civilizations of the world are so often connected with others of the same type. For what are we to say when the truth becomes discovered that right here in America under our free and democratic institutions the same facts are to be found?

Galton mentions only three or four Americans, but a careful analysis of our own history speaks no less strongly for the inherited nature of exceptional ability.

The Lees of Virginia, the Livingstons of New York, the Adamses, Quincys and Lowells of Massachusetts, all illustrate the force of hereditary intellect. It is claimed that there are no less than 1,400 superior Americans descended in a direct line from Jonathan Edwards, the great philosopher of Puritan New England, whose blood has run through thirteen college presidents, sixty-five professors, and many principals of important academies.

The Edwards blood has produced more than one hundred lawyers, thirty judges, and some sixty more have attained distinction in authorship, the latest being Mr. Winston Churchill, of New Hampshire. They have been mayors of New Haven, Cleveland and Troy, governors of South Carolina, Connecticut and Ohio, and many diplomats, congressmen, senators and one vice-president of the United States are recorded among their number. Railways, steamship lines and banks have also claimed their talent, but in general Edwards traits have found their outlet in professional life.

The two most notable families in America, considering descent in the male lines alone (the remarkable Edwards showing includes the female lines as well), are the Lees and Adamses, with the Lowells pressing close in third place. Taking into account international as well as local fame, probably Henry Adams, who settled in Braintree, Massachusetts, in 1632, has the honor of being the progenitor of more