Heredity : a psychological study of its phenomena, laws, causes, and consequences / From the French of Th. Ribot.

  • Ribot, Th. (Théodule), 1839-1916.
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Heredity : a psychological study of its phenomena, laws, causes, and consequences / From the French of Th. Ribot. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    88/460 (page 72)
    72 Heredity. \ form, beyond time and space, and then they have nothing in common with experience; or we consider them in their pheno¬ menal manifestations, and then there is no logical ground for exempting them from the law of heredity. II. It must now be^ shown from facts that this transmission is not only possible, but actual. Here is a difficulty. Intellect—that is to say, the faculty of comparing, judging, reasoning—is found everywhere—in science, politics, art, industrial inventions, learning, history, etc. Is it, therefore, necessary to class under the head of intellect every case of heredity in politics, literature, and art? We must have recourse to an artificial process, and divide what in nature is united. Surrendering, therefore, to imagination all that concerns artists, and to active faculties all that has to do with politics, we here treat only of cases in which pure intellect—that is to say, reflection, taste, or criticism—predominates. Still these cases are sufficiently numerous to make two catego¬ ries. In the first we place men of science, philosophers, poli¬ tical economists, etc. ; in the second, writers, properly so called, historians, critics, and novelists. This division is, of course, some¬ what arbitrary, nor should any great stress be laid on it ; but it will enable us to introduce more order into our arrangement. MEN OF SCIENCE. Families eminent in science are not rare. Many scientific men take after their fathers. The atmosphere of free inquiry in which they were brought up has not been without influence on their vocation. Still, education does not constitute genius ; and in order to have a turn for scientific investigation, something more is required than the external transmission resulting from education. It has also been observed that the mothers or grandmothers of several men of science were remarkable women, as in the case of Bufl'on, Bacon, Condorcet, Cuvier, d'Alembert, Forbes, Watt, Jussieu, etc.^ Heredity among philosophers is somewhat rare. > Galton, who notes this fact, assigns for it a reason which to us seems very questionable. Women, says he, are blinder partisans and more servile fol¬ lowers of custom than men ; and it is a great blessing for a child to have a mother