rather than shady.
There were 22 great-grandchildren. In aU 74 descend-
ants.
3. A normal daughter married into a normal and aristocratic
family.
All blemishes were expelled. There were 5 children,
16 grandchildren. Observe the decrease in fertility.
4. A daughter doubtfully sane marries into a family with
insanity. Here again we meet disaster — 12 children.
Nature's toU —
2 idiots.
1 imbecile (alas, he married).
2 had tremors.
3 very unstable.
One who was unstable married into a healthy family, and
had 10 normal children.
The imbecile married into a branch of the family A, with
increased ill-luck, including : —
1 idiot.
1 dixmb.
7 unstable.
There were 16 in all, and not one worth anything.
5. A son with tremors marries into a neurotic family.
There were 11 children, with 5 insane; 12 grand-
children.
6. A daughter with nerve tremors marries into another
aristocratic family. There were 12 children.
1 an idiot.
3 with tremors.
Otherwise they were normal.
There were 28 grandchildren, and about 22 great-grand-
children.
PREPOTENCY 43
To sum up (as far as they can be traced). The original
first cousin marriage resulted in —
10 children with a toll of 7 disasters.
67 grandchildren ,, „ 36 disasters.
168 great-grandchildren „ „ 6 known disasters.
94 great-great-grandchildren.
Total 329
Note how much more prolific and prepotent the cousin
marriageship became (329 against 126). It has been impos-
sible for me to collect all the facts as to grandchildren ; there
are very many unstable specimens amongst them.
This is a clear demonstration against the policy or profit
of inbreeding.
CHAPTER VI
HEREDITY— VIEWS OF GREGOR MENDEL
Gregor Mendel, the abbot of Brunn. SPECIAL ADVANTAGE OF THE
SWEET PEA FOR EXPERIMENTS : Peas selected with opposite charac-
ters — In first generation, offspring intensify one of the parental characters
— Dominants and Recessives — Second generation — Third generation of
self-fertilization — Recessives breed recessives — Dominants breed both.
PROF. BATESON'S RESEARCHES : Gametes and Zygotes—
Hybrid of tall and short pea — Experiments with peas with three pairs of
opposite characters — Further possibilities in hybrid variations — Men-
delism not universal. REVERSION : Germinal units — Each being is
a living mosaic — The blue Andalusian fowl a hybrid of black and white
— Experiments with coloured stocks. SPORTS : Chances for offspring.
HUMAN MONGRELS : Our ancestral units from ten generations
— Gametes vary, so the progenitor cannot be accountable for his descend-
ants — Bateson's illustration as to pedigree. RESULT OF GAMETES
UNION : (i) Resemblance to parent ; (2) Something intermediate ;
(3) A new form may appear. As example, the cross between white and
piebald mice. HUMAN SPORTS : De Vries' experiments with the
evening primrose — Case of mixed pairing, spaniel and setter — A family
with malformed fingers — Cases of congenital cataract. ADVANTAGE
OF HEALTHY MARRIAGE : As shown in cases of disease and immunity
— The case of yellow rust in wheat — Experiments by Mr. Biffen — Applica-
tion to sociology — Cause of degeneracy — Criminal often a sport — Compare
with experiments of the stock. GALTON ON AVERAGES : The
tendency to mediocrity — Sir J. Paget's analysis supports the law of
mediocrity — Law of regression — Parental gifts rarely transmitted — In
stature regressive — Dame Nature throws off defects. STABILITY IN
NEW VARIETIES OR SPECIES : Sports— Stability of type necessary to
be transmitted — Value of good stock for breeding purposes. IS ALL
MANKIND ONE SPECIES, OR SEVERAL ? : Three clear types— Variety
among white races— Families differ. HYBRIDS AMONG SPECIES —
Mongrels among races — Reversion in cross breeding — One of the " bloods "
expelled — A new or disordered variation — Hybrids tend to sterility and
require replenishing — Example in cross between sheep and goat — Man
is a mongrel — Fertility increased by crossing — Cross with negro — Atavism
— The pervert and invert due to atavism — Darwin's observations on
crossing fowls.
No essay on heredity would be complete without referring
to the researches of Gregor Mendel, the abbot of Brunn. He
was born in the year 1822, the son of Silesian peasants, and
became a priest at the age of twenty-five. He carried out
a series of investigations in the gardens of the cloister, and
read important papers in 1854 and 1855 before the Botanical
Society of Brunn. These works were brought before the
HEREDITY— VIEWS OF GREGOR MENDEL 45
scientific world by Professor WiUiam Bateson of Cambridge,
and more extensively elaborated.^
Mendel experimented cbiefly with sweet peas {Pisum sativum), Special
finding them less liable than most flowers to contamination tage^of
with foreign pollen, as the keel of the flower covers in the the Sweet
anthers, and excludes the entrance of most insects. As the g^ejif
pollen falls on the pistil, there may be an early self-f ertihzation ments
before the flower is fuUy opened.
Mendel selected peas which had opposite characters in
certain details. Altogether he selected seven such pairs, or,
as he called them. Allelomorphs, and they were as follows :
1. Shape of the seed, round or angular.
2. Colour of the cotyledons, yellow or green.
3. ColoTor of the seed skins, light grey or dark.
4. Shape of the seed pod, inflated or constricted.
5. Coloior of the iinripe pod, yellow or green.
6. Inflorescence. Flowers terminal or on the axis of the stem.
7. Length of stem, long about 5 feet, short |^ to 1|^ feet.
Mendel crossed two varieties of peas which differed in
respect of one of these pairs of characters. In the first genera-
tion the offspring always showed the character of one parent
much intensified. Thus where they were long and short
varieties, the offspring would be 7 to 8 feet long instead
of 6 feet. He therefore called the prevaihng character, domin-
ant, and the absent, non-appearing feature, recessive. He
next crossed these hybrids, and in the second generation there
appeared with constant regularity 3 dominants to 1 recessive.
3 D. + l R.
He carried on the self-fertilization of the hybrids to a third
generation, and always got a different but uniform result,
namely : —
1. That the offspring of the recessives continued pure
recessives in all future generations. They had thrown out
the dominant characters.
2. The offspring of the dominants are split up into : —
(i) Pure dominants which only breed dominants,
(ii) Mixed offspring, though with dominant characters, which breed
like those of the second generation.
^ MendeVs Principles of Heredity.
46 EDUCATION, PERSONALITY AND CRIME
The third generation yields per cent : —
â– â– â– -jY 25 Pure Dominants.
1R ^rT ^^ Mixed Dominants.
^ -^ 25 Pure Recessives.
D
The mixed — work out again in the same fashion, throwing
R
out pure recessives and apparent dominants in the proportion
of IR to 3D. In other words, in each generation half return
to the pure parental forms and half are mixed in character.
Prof. Professor Bateson,^ having regard to our present know-
Bateson's iQ^gQ of fecundation, expresses the subject diagrammatically
searches by means of black and white squares to represent dominant
and recessive quaHties. One can attain the same object by
the use of Roman capitals. Referring to the Chapter III
on Embryology it will be seen that when ovum and sperm
unite, or as Mendel styles them two gametes, they form a
zygote which divides into two daughter cells. Therefore
each germinal unit is expressed in pairs, thus — -, in which the
upper letter represents the apparent character.
We can represent this fertilization of peas in the following
picture : —
D R
D~^^
D D
1st Generation -^ x -^
D D D R,
2nd Generation pure -jT- + mixed ^ + -^ + pure -^
The pure continue to breed pure —
D D
The mixed^D" ^ ^ repeat in the
D . , D D R
3rd Generation pure -jc- + mixed ^ + -^ + pure -^
And so on.
Pure dominants and pure recessives breed pure.
1 Address to Neurolog. Soc, Brain, cxiv, 1906.
HEREDITY— VIEWS OF GREGOR MENDEL 47
If applied practically and a taU variety is crossed with a
short sweet pea, then the first generation is all tall, showing
that tallness is dominant, — -.
R
The second self -fertilized generation shows three tails to one
dwarf. The dwarfs or recessives RR when propagated produce
no more tails, whilst of the three tails, one is pure produc-
ing no more shorts ; the other two are mixed,-—, the recessive
R
quality R being latent or covered. The same process con-
tinues ; so that the pure forms return to the parental type.
Mendel crossed plants having 2, 3, or more pairs of
opposite characters, but the result is too intricate and long
to quote. As all this bears directly on the variation of indi-
viduals and families in the human race I will mention that
from 24 hybrids raised from peas having 3 pairs of opposite
characters he got 687 seeds and in the following year
639 fruited plants. There were among them 27 combina-
tions, some very complicated. I copy the table from
Bateson's work, merely to impress the imagination with the
knowledge of such complex arrangements of characters in
ourselves, with the suggestion that it has a psychological
application. The letters Aa, Bb, Cc represent the opposite
characters or allelomorphs ; for example, Aa long versus short,
and so on.
iree characters :
Four characters :
Five and Six C
8 ABC
22 A B C c
ters :
14 ABc
17 AbCc
45 A B b C c
9 AbC
25 a B C c
36 aBbCc
11 Abe
20 a b C c
38 AaB Cc
8 aBC
15 ABbC
40 A a b C c
10 a Be
18 ABbc
49 A a b B c
10 abC
19 aBbC
78 Aa Bb Cc
7 ab c
24 a B b c
14 AaBC
18 AaBc
20 A a b C
16 Aabc
The characters A and B in gametes may blend in a zygote,
or one of the characters, as A, may in the presence of B split
up into minor integral characters (hypallelomorphs) A^ A^
48 EDUCATION, PERSONALITY AND CRIME
A^ A^, so that the compound resultant cannot be foreseen.
One gamete might be B and the other A^, B A^, or B A*
A2, or B A 4 or B A^ A^ A^ presenting endless possibiKties.
This we may safely anticipate occurs pretty frequently in
the complex mysteries of humanity.
Mendel's theories are not universal in their application,
but there are other more recent experiments in support of
it which are worth quoting.
C. C. Hurst 1 records the results of breeding black and white
rabbits. Here black was dominant (D).
In some of the hybrid families of the second generation
he obtained the usual number of :
D D D
and 1 albino -^5-
While in other famihes he obtained —
D
mixed -^ 9 gray
(pure) -^ 3 black
(pure) -^ 4 albinos.
This works out at 3D+1R
R , D , D , D
or — 4- — + — H
R ^ D R ^ R
which falls in with Mendel's law.
But some of the blacks may contain white or recessive germs
and thus throw off some more albinos. The casual observer
would be struck by apparently pure individuals throwing off
impure (white) descendants ; the way in which each reader
can apply this to human families of his acquaintance must
afford the very greatest interest.
Rever- In these cases there appears to be a union of a latent invisi-
sion \yiQ character from one parent, perhaps from each parent,
and we may regard these hidden units as ancestral. Or
reversion may be due, according to Bateson, to meetings of
complementary pairs of factors, which at some time of their
^ Journ. Linn. Soc, xxix, p. 283.
HEREDITY— VIEWS OF GREGOR MENDEL 49
history have lost their complement. It emphasizes the unit
formation or division of apparently simple characters or
properties, and it changes the old ideas of heredity, treating
an individual as a unit. Naudin put forward the theory
that each individual is a living mosaic, which gives great
support to the view that the Ego or Personahty is also
a mosaic.
Punnett ^ made some useful investigations concerning the
blue Andalusian fowl, and proved the blueness to be a heterozy-
gote of pure black, and white with black splashes.
The blue Andalusian fowl never breeds true, but their
offspring yield : —
J pure black, which breed pure black.
J splashed white, which breed pure splashed white, and
f blue.
The blacks, and splashed whites, are then pure or homozy-
gotes, and when they are paired they yield the blue Andalusian
fowl. Thus —
Black X White (homozygotes)
I
Blue Andalusian
(heterozygotes)
I
Blue X Blue
I
1 Black
pure
I
Continues
Black
Blue X Blue
Pure
Black
2 Blues
Mixed
or
(heterozygotes)
Pixre
White
1 White
pure
I
Continues
White
The experiment of Professor Bateson with coloured stocks
will appeal to every student of sociology. He made a hybrid
of the two following stocks : —
a red stock which had —
(a) Red sap,
(6) Colourless corpuscles.
a oream stock which had —
(c) Colourless sap,
(d) Yellow corpuscles;
^ See Punnett on Mendelism.
E
50 EDUCATION, PERSONALITY AND CRIME
The red was proved in the first generation to prevail or
/ be dominant.
(• / The second generation by self-fertilization showed : —
D
It' (1) -jY °^ Dominant 9 reds — pure a b
(a) Red sap.
(b) Colourless corpuscles.
D
(2) ^p~3 red cream.
(a) Reid sap.
(d) Yellow corpuscles.
R
(3) ^5- or Recessive 1 pure cream — pure c d
(c) Coloiirless sap.
(d) Yellow corpuscles.
(4) 3 new variations or whites.
(6) Colourless corpuscles,
(c) Colourless sap.
or 3D to IR as before.
These white varieties, perhaps due to non-development of
pigment, might be called " sports," but they may be a rever-
sion to some ancestor.
We have already seen in plants and animals, and have no
reason to exclude man, that heredity may produce offspring
like one or other parent, or a blend of each, or a new form, or
a reversion to a former ancestor.
In this way by a study of parents we may form some idea
of what the children's prospects are, for they are in one sense
as helpless as the plants we have been discussing.
Human Are not the Britishers the greatest mongrels in existence ?
Mongrels Qgjtg^ Normans, Romans, Saxons, Danes, not to mention
the foreign invasion now commencing of Germans, Swedes,
Russians, Italians, French and others. The potentiaKties
of mixed molecules in the germ plasm exceed the imagination.
Let us see what may happen to each individual in regard
to his ancestry.
The first generation travelling backwards represents our parents.
The second generation backward represents 4 grandparents.
The third generation backward represents 8 great-grandparents.
The fourth generation backward represents 16 ancestors.
The fifth generation backward represents 32 ancestors.
The sixth generation backward represents 64 ancestors.
The seventh generation backward represents 128 ancestors.
HEREDITY— VIEWS OF GREGOR MEKDEL 51
The eighth generation backward represents 256 ancestors.
The ninth generation backward represents 512 ancestors.
The tenth generation backward represents 1,024 ancestors.
We must apply these facts to our population in order to
unravel the question of individuality and personahty. Mendel
says the gametes or germinal units of hybrids are different
at each successive generation, and therefore the progenitor
cannot be accountable for his descendants, and appUes this
to the laws of ancient heredity.
Bateson compares the formation of new varieties to the
chemical union of sodium and chlorine making common salt,
which is a new body in no way resembling its " parents."
By the union of different gametes (perhaps characters), Resultof
n .1 1, -uj. • Gametic,
one oi three results may obtain : — Union
(1) Something may appear Hke either parent, as in the
cases where the dominant theory appHes.
(2) An intermediate form may appear. Thus Mendel found
that hybrids flower at the intermediate period when their
parents flower at different times, early and late,
(3) New forms appear, which are quite different from
the parent, as in the case of a cross between the magenta
Chinese primrose and the clear white variety, resulting in
a " washy " magenta. This last condition specially appeals
to Anthropology or Criminology.
Variation may be due to some putative ancestor, and
thus correspond to Darwin's theory of reversion. As an
instance, if the tame white (albino) mouse be crossed with
the piebald Japanese, the result is the grey " wild " form.
These reversionary greys produce : —
(a) The parental tame types.
(6) Reversionary greys.
(c) New types.
We can infer then what chances there are of some putative Human
human ancestor asserting himself in a new combination as a Sports
sport. This theory is rejected by many as incapable of proof,
but surely what has once entered " the blood " can only be
ehminated by dilution, not by extinction, and it is a recognized
fact that whatever variation has once appeared may appear
in any future generation.
52 EDUCATION, PERSONALITY AND CRIME
In support of this idea De Vries ^ sowed a wild specimen
of (Enothera Lamarkiana (evening primrose) in the Botanical
Gardens at Amsterdam, and obtained no fewer than 9 varia-
tions, all of which must have been represented in a latent
form. Some of these varieties were stable and formed new
species, which Bateson terms " discontinuous variations."
Others reverted to the parental type and were unstable. A
few were so sickly and weak that they could with difficulty
be reared.
Again in the " International series " there is mention of a
cross between a setter and a spaniel. A male, which resembled
the setter, was paired with a pure setter, and the offspring
were spaniels. This case appeared as a reversion, but with
Mendel's law it is easily explained.
Similar occurrences frequently crop up in the human race.
Farabee ^ quotes a family in Pennsylvania where several
members had 2 phalanges instead of the normal number (3) in
the fingers and toes. This malformation was a dominant char-
acter. Those with normal fingers were recessives and their
offspring were hkewise normal ; while the dominants alhed
in marriage to normal individuals produced some recessives
or normals and some dominants.
The summing up of the offspring showed :
36 Dominants or abnormals and
33 Recessives or normals
from 14 abnormal parents.
This shows that marriage so far corrects defects as to give
equal chances for normal results.
Mr. Nettleship ^ reported three families affected with con-
genital cataract, and the offspring of the abnormals yielded :
26 affected with cataract,
and 29 not affected with cataract,
showing again even chances for the future generatioij.
Advan- The inference is that if physical defects are thus cut out
Heathy ^^ *^® offspring there is hope for nerve and mental defects.
Marriages
^ Die Mutationstheorie, 1901, H. de Vries.
* Papers Peabody, Mus. Amer. Arch., 1905, p. 69.
* Bep. Boy. Lond. Ophth. Hosp., xvi, pt. iii, p. 23.
HEREDITY— VIEWS OF GREGOR MENDEL 53
perhaps vices also, being reduced in the same ratio by healthy-
marriage. Probably the ratio will be more favourable if the
environment be carefully studied, which is a scientific argument
in favour of suitable emigration
As regards disease and immunity from disease, we can bring
forward cases by way of illustration. Consumption enters
a family, say by the mother, and carries off those children which
follow the maternal type. The same applies to mental disease,
and, though we cannot always trace it, perhaps also to moral
disease. This method of examination is but very seldom
resorted to. During many years of general practipe I was
struck with this fact, and while giving comfort and assurance
to the one type would carefully guard the children built after
the style of the affected parent. Though I style it as inherited
disease, it may be more correct to say an inherited tendency
to disease. Here again we fall back on botany and biology
for a basis on which to rear the Temple to Hygeia. Thus
some kinds of wheat are liable to attacks of yellow rust {Puc-
cinia glumarum), other kinds are almost immune, although
they may grow side by side. Here we have two Mendehan
aUelomorphic characters :
1. Predisposition to rust, and
2. Immunity therefrom.
Let us substitute the word tubercle for rust, and see if it does
apply to the human family, for with this knowledge by careful
intermarriage we might improve the race against tubercle.
At present we are in a state of confusion and can only think
of isolation with a view to extermination of individuals. In
this matter a State Marriage Bureau would greatly assist.
The experiments of Mr. Biffen^ at Cambridge have not as
yet been encouraging. He crossed two wheats, one which
was quite immune from rust with another which was very
liable to rust. The first generation were aU rusty, showing
that rust-weakness was the dominant character. The breeding
of these hybrids produced in the second generation just what
one would predict, namely, three rusty plants to one immune.
Immunity was the recessive quahty and remained pure. These
experiments are capable of enlargement, and may then enhghten
* R. H. Biff en. Jour. Agric. Sci., 1905.
Galton on
Averages
54 EDUCATION, PERSONALITY AND CRIME
us on the subjects of tubercle and insanity, suggesting artificial
selection in marriage.
This is a most useful illustration for sociology and crimino-
logy of how two unharmonizing units may come together,
and produce degeneracy, or even lay the seed of the criminal
or the insane.
I have so frequently found the criminal to be a " sport "; the
only one out of a large family group, and no special cause to
be traced. Supposing we hken a father to the red stock and
that he be intellectual, but " naturally " lazy : this last quality
to correspond to the colourless corpuscles. He may by the
instinct of self-preservation rise to a good social position.
The mother let us say is vain amidst many fine quahties which
conceal the defect. The vanity corresponds to the colourless
sap in the cream stock. Nothing therefore can be even whis-
pered against the parents, yet a son may be a criminal. The
Judge would consider he merited more punishment than a simi-
lar criminal in humbler circumstances. But the psychologist,
who builds on natural sciences, views the subject from a
totally different standpoint. Many cases of this character are
constantly passing before us.
Sir Francis Galton has written a very interesting book on
Natural Inheritance. It is full of statistics, tables and mathe-
matical calculations as to averages, but it is not biological.
He has made a large number of observations and has formulated
various laws and general conclusions. He finds there is in
famihes and groups a tendency to mediocrity. Thus if
one parent be very taU and the other very short, the offspring
will not be either very tall or very short, but the majority of
them will be of average height.
As an example Sir James Paget investigated the careers
of 1,000 of his pupils and divided them into five classes,
thus :
Distinguished ....
28
Considerable attainments .
80
Moderate or mediocre
. 616
Very limited success .
. 151
Failure .....
. 125
Galton formulated a law of Regression, which puts a
HEREDITY— VIEWS OF GREGOR MENDEL 55
" succession tax " on offspring, and tells heavily against the
transmission of any hereditary gift.
As we often observe, the more bountifully a parent is gifted
the more rare it is for him to beget a child equal to himself.
The children of gifted parents may, however, be more gifted
than those of mediocre parents. Galton says " the ablest of
all the children of a few gifted pairs is not likely to be as gifted
as the ablest of all the children of a very great many mediocre
pairs."
In matters of stature Galton finds there is a regressive tend-
ency from parent to child, and the same as to finer qualities.
But Nature is just, and on the same plan tries to throw out
defects and badness in the progeny. Cancer, tubercle and
mental disease, may be taken as types of this, for in families
so affected the offspring are either badly affected or throw it
off altogether.
Galton insisted that stability is the factor in new Stability
varieties, or as Bateson terms them " discontinuous varia- |" ^.^^
' Varieties
tions," which in reahty are new species and therefore do not of