The problems of heredity / by E. Apert.

  • Apert, E. (Eugène), 1868-
Date:
1914
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The problems of heredity / by E. Apert. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/68 page 400
    and the portraits of Charles V show this peculiarity most strongly, and it is still found more or less characterized in the great majority of members of royal families, as much among the great houses that we have mentioned as on the small thrones of more recent founda- tion where they are at once fixed by repeated alliances. You see, the 'peculiarities persist in successive generations only xohen they exist at the same time in the paternal and mateimal an- cestors. In the inverse case they rapidly disappear. In what concerns the intellectual faculties we reach the same con- clusions. We could cite numerous examples of families where the same order of talents has appeared among several members. Among literateurs, the two Plinys (uncle and nephew), Seneca and his nephew Lucien, the two Corneille brothers and their nephew Fonte- nelle, the two Chenier brothers, the two Musset brothers, the two Alexandre Dumas, father and son, and many others. Among learned men we find the physicists Becquerel, grandfather, father, son, and grandson; the mathematicians BemouiUi, uncle and three nephews or grandnephews, and the naturalists Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, Isodore and Etienne, father and son. Among painters are the three Vernet. Carl, Joseph, and Horace. We could lengthen the list very much, but the persistency of high talent seldom persists more than three generations. In order that this may be otherwise, the inheritance of a certain talent must be maintained by the union of families equally endowed. We could mention several examples of this. Thus the Darwin and the Galton families, both of which include eminent naturalists, have been thus united repeatedly. Here we find the per- sistence of remarkable faculties relative to qatural history for five generations, since Erasmus and Kobert Darwin, both naturalists of high merit, grandfather and father of the illustrious Charles Darwin, down to the sons and grandsons of the latter, one of whom, George, has recently died after achieving some remarkable work in natural history, and another, Leonard Darwin, who presided re- cently at the meeting of the Eugenic Congress in London. The Gal- tons likewise were perpetuated by Sir Francis Galton, grandson of Charles Darwin through his mother. It was he who founded the Eugenic Laboratory of London, and accumulated numerous works on heredity, from which the greater part of the facts that I will relate to you are borrowed. The most beautiful example of mental heredity is that of the Bach family, the musicians. The beginner was Veit Bach, a baker at Pres- bourg, who refreshed himself after his toil by his songs and music. He had two sons, who commenced that unbroken line of musicians of the same name which spread over Thuringe, Saxony, and Fran- conia for nearly two centuries. Fifty-seven musicians of that family
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