The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-10-12

1 of cause for human character. Whatever in human nature is due to ono of those three causes takes so much from the other.
 Of course 1t is impossible to say in the case of certain individual how much | of his makeup is due to one and how much to another of the three causes. but these maxims on the subject have been laid down:
 "A gifted individual Is more likely to be the exceptional offsprings of mediocre parents than the average offsprang of gifted parents"
 And:
 Among mankind we trust largely for our exceptional men to extreme variations occurring among the commonplace. However, by studying large number or individuals 1t is possible to estimate, per haps vaguely, the proportional reliance that is to be placed on the average of each of the three causes. Galton did this and laid down this law. which is based on the stature and color in ani- mals, in human hair and eyes: Each child inherits onehalf of his makeup from his parents. one-half of the remaining half from his grandparents, one-half of the remaining one-fourth from his great-grandparents, and so on to infinity.
 
 fourth of the entire influence to the in- diyidual; each grandparent one-fourth or one-fourth, each great-grandparent one eighth of one-eighth, or one sixty-fourth and so on.
 Incidentally it may be seen here how little is the influence to be expected rom heredity from one distinguished great grandfather"
 Rut. according to Cations law, if your parents were misers and your four grand narents. your eight great-grandparents and all the rest of your ancestry were spendthrifts, you--the average of you would know how to spend money ana how to save money.
 But, being only an amateur student you ask, amazed:
 ! How was it that, all their ancestors being spendthrifts, my parents were mi- sers?' The scientific answer is: Your parents may have been a 'pe- culiar type exceptional; extreme va riations among the commonplace; the stoc.s of their fathers and mothers may have widely differed from each others; or, perhaps there was prepotency' in your parents case as in the case of albanos, or they may have been new varieties and so have been seeming errors rom l the expected"
 So you see how interesting IS this study even for the unscieEtif1c. Phe learned lay down laws and carefully prop their laws with the fundam 9ntaI one:
 .'The exceptional offspring of mediocre parents is more likely to bs giften than the average offspring of gifted parents. |"
 Prof. Carl H. Eigenmann of the Uni yersity of Indiana calls Cations law "the fool-killing law" which Is complt- mentary to 0alton. Professor Eigenmann has lately written a valuable article on 'The Physical Basis of Heredity" in which he says of Galton's law:
 ''This law explai IS another-that the offspring of exceptional parents are, on an average, less exceptional than their parents
 "Supposing that the average height of two parents exceeds the average height of the race by three inches. The average of the grandparents and remoter ances- tors will differ from the average height of the race by much less than this Since the ancestors beyond the parents con tribute one-half Inc entire heritage of the individual they will act as drag to pull the individual toward medlocrity. in the present case by an inch.
 This law acts impartiaiiy, so that the offspri 1g of the extremely good and the extremely bad are both savef from ths fate of their parents. This regression to- ward mediocrity may laadsly be over come by selectiye breeding. .n race horse breeding If the ancestry has been good for three or four generations, ths rest are not considereI.'
 Eigenmann gives this good advice to vain fools:
 Lit is evident from these laws that If any fond parents feel that they are in any way remarkable their apparently re-
 Aa Raa only two-thirds as remarkable as them selves.
 Also if there are any fond sons or daughters who rely on rarely gifted par ents for their standing amoDd their fei- loks the sooner they begin to look to themselves to make up by individual ef- fort their probable loss by the law of retrogression, the better, for, on an aver age, they are but two-thirds as gifted as their parents.
 II would not mention this fool-killing law but that it has it's bright side.
 If any individual feels it in him to do and be something, a mediocre parentage need not discourage him, for, on the average, exceptional individuals. as we all thnk ourselves to he, exceed the average of humanity by ons-half as much again as their parents exceeded the average"
 The unscientiic can scarcely grasp Professor Eigenmann s theory because n deals with the remotest microscopic pro cesses of cell reproduction, with the de- velopmena of a new individual from a single cell which is usually produced by the fusion of two cells. He defines a cell as a mass of protoplasm inclosing a differentiated portion or nucleus"
 This nucleus contains, among other things, during certain phases of cell life, | a definite number of threadlke bodies l called chromosomes" The number of chromosom differs in different animals, | but is always the same in different cells | of the same animal. l