Recognized HTML document

I.]   ANTECEDENTS.   71

sense public men ; and (3) the number of those who, not being publicly known, had nevertheless considerable reputation among their friends. It is therefore only requisite (after some previous revision) to add the returns together, and to compare the number of distinguished kinsmen in the various degrees with the total number of kinsmen in those degrees, to obtain results whose ratio to one another is the one we are in search of. These conclusions are not materially vitiated by the fact that different correspondents may have different estimates of what constitutes distinction, so long as each writer is consistent to his own scale. I have tried the figures in many ways-without any revision at all, with moderate revision, and with careful sifting, and I find the proportions to come out much the same in every case. In comparing these with previous results, obtained from an analysis of men of much higher general eminence (" Hereditary Genius," p. 317), I find the falling off in ability from the central figure, the hero of the family, to be less rapid as the distance of the kinship increases. There