1.]   ANTECEDENT.   39

not account for their being less prolific than their parents who were also townsmen, nor for the large number of wholly sterile marriages.

HEREDITY.

The effects of education and circumstances are so interwoven with those of natural character in determining a man's position among his contemporaries, that I find it impossible to treat them wholly apart. Still less is it possible completely to separate the evidences relating to that portion of a man's nature which is due to heredity, from all the rest. Heredity and many other co-operating causes must therefore be considered in connection ; but I feel sure that as the reader proceeds, and becomes familiar with the variety of the evidence, he will insensibly effect for himself much of the required separation. Also, from time to time, as opportunity may offer, I shall attempt to draw distinctions.

The study of hereditary form and features in combination with character promises to be of much interest, but it proves disappointing on