OCR Rendition - approximate

T. 320 Hereditary Talent and Character. insuperable difficulty. If everybody were to agree on the improvement of the race of man being a matter of the very utmost * importance, and if the theory.of the hereditary transmission of qualities in men was as thoroughly understood as it is in the case of our domestic animals, I see no absurdity in supposing that, in some way or other, the improvement would be carried into effect. It remains for me in the present article to show that hereditary influence is as clearly marked in mental aptitudes as in general intellectual power. I will then enter into some of the considerations which my views on hereditary' talent and character naturally suggest. I will first quote a few of those cases in which characteristics have been inherited that clearly depend on peculiaiities of organization. Prosper Lucas was among our earliest encyclop cdists on this subject. It is distinctly shown by him, and agreed to by others, such as Mr. G. Lewes, that predisposition to any form of disease, or any malformation, may become an inheritance. Thus disease of the heart is hereditary ; so are tubercles in the lungs ; so also are diseases of the brain, of the liver, and of the kidney ; so are diseases of 'the eye and of -the ear. General maladies are equally inheritable, as gout and madness. Longevity on the one hand, and premature deaths on the other, go by descent. If we consider a class of peculiarities; more recondite in their origin than these; we shall still find the law of inheritance to hold good. A morbid susceptibility to contagious disease, or to the poisonous effects of opium, or of calomel, and an aversion to the taste of meat, are all found to be inherited. So is a craving for drink, or for gambling, strong sexual passion, a proclivity to pauperism, to crimes of violence, and to f crimes of fraud. There 'are certain marked types of character, justly associated with marked types of feature and, of temperament. We hold; axioruati~ally, that the latter are inherited (the. case being too notorious, and too consistent with the ana logy afforded by brute animals, to render argument necessary), and we therefore infer the same of the former. For instance, the face of the combatant is square, coarse, and heavily jawed. It differs from that of the ascetic, the voluptuary, the dreamer, and the charlatan. Still more strongly marked than these, are the typical features and characters of different races of men. The Mongolians, ' Jews, Negroes, Gipsies, and American Indians ; severally propagate their kinds; and each kind differs in character and intellect, as well as in colour and shape, from the other four. 'They, and a vast number of other races, form a class of instances worthy of close investigation, in which peculiarities of character are invariably transmitted from the parents to the offspring. In founding argument on the innate character of different races, it is necessary to bear in mind the exceeding docility of man. His mental habits in mature life are the creatures of social discipline, as. well as of inborn aptitudes, and it is impossible to ascertain what is due to ' the latter alone, except by observing several individuals of the same race, reared under various influences, and noting the peculiarities of character that invariably assert themselves. But, even when we have imposed these restrictions to check a hasty and imaginative conclusion, we find there remain abundant data to prove an astonishing diversity in 'the natural characteristics of different. races. It will be sufficient for our purpose if we fix our attention upon the peculiarities of one, or two of them. The race of the American Indians is spread over an enormous area, and through every climate ; for it reaches from the frozen regions of the North', through the equator, down to the inelement regions of the South. It exist3 in ' thousands of disconnected communities, speaking nearly as many different languages. It 'has been subjected to a strange variety of 'political influences, such as its own despotisms in Peru, Mexico, Natchez, and Bogota, anc its