234 NATURAL INHERITANCE.
with, first arose simultaneously in the three brothers of a family who transmitted their peculiarities with unusual tenacity to numer, ous descendants through at least four generations. Other influences act in antagonism to the foregoing; they are the events of domestic life, which instead of assimilating tempers tend to accentuate slight differences in them. Thus if some members of a family are a little submissive by nature, others who are naturally domineering are tempted to become more so. Then the acquired habit of dictation in these reacts upon the others and makes them still more submissive. In the collection I made of the histories of twins who were closely alike, it was most commonly said that one of the twins was guided by the other. I suppose that after their many childish struggles for supremacy, each finally discovered his own relative strength of character, and thenceforth the stronger developed into the leader, while the weaker contentedly subsided into the position of being led. Again, it is sometimes observed that one member of an otherwise easygoing family, discovers that he or she may exercise considerable power by adopting the habit of being persistently disagreeable whenever he or she does not get the first and best of everything. Some wives contrive to tyrannise over husbands who are mild and sensitive, who hate family scenes and dread the disgrace attending them, by holding themselves in readiness to fly into a passion whenever their wishes are withstood. They thus acquire a habit of '° breaking out," to use a term familiar to the warders of female prisons and lunatic asylums ; and though their relatives and connections would describe their tempers by severe epithets, yet if they had married masterful husbands their characters might have developed more favourably.
To recapitulate briefly, one set of influences tends to mix good and bad tempers in a family at haphazard ; another set tends to assimilate them, so that they shall all be good or all be bad ; a third set tends to divide each family into contrasted portions. We have now to ascertain the facts and learn the results of these opposing influences.
In dealing with the distribution of temper in Fraternities,1 we
1 A Fraternity consists of the brothers of a family, and of the sisters after the qualities of the latter have been transmuted to their Male Equivalents ; but as
no change in the Female values seems really needed, so none has been made in respect to Temper.
