as with good seed; you may dwarf the one or stint the other, or improve, within the range of healthy vitality, either one or both. And so it is in the animal kingdom; in the horse, the ox, the sheep, and the dog; in form, colour, inclination, and temper; in excellence or defect,— the law impresses itself. Blood, or breed, is everything. A pair of Shetland ponies would never generate a racer or a hunter. A Devon may unite with the Alderney, and both shall be evident in the progeny, which will, nevertheless, differ from each. You may shorten the legs or improve the wool of the mountain sheep, by crossing the breed. The persistent and vicious mastiff, the dull unteachable greyhound, the cunning collie of the shepherd, and the intelligent Newfoundland dog, are all of one race, brought into these different varieties by causes operating through many generations. Conditions are modified by a union among congeners; but the alteration is still another illustration of the law. The farmer avails himself of the principle to improve his stock, and obtains beautiful forms and useful qualities of bone, muscle or nerve; but he never expects figs from thistles, swans from ducklings, or wheat from clover. Every tree, too, has its own special physiognomy-the gnarled oak, wide spreading cedar, graceful ash, or weeping willow; and each propagates its kind.

In the mightiest monarch, as well as in the humblest citizen, the great law of heritage is manifest, and runs through every gradation of man's existence. All races of men, and even nations and tribes, whether the Asiatic Brahmin, or Hindoo; the African Negro, or Arab; the European Italian, Spaniard, German, or French-they all have their special individual types in feature, physiognomy, and character. The Gypsies and the Jews, in every age, have been wanderers in many lands; and, marrying among their own people, preserve their dark epidermis and chocolate complexions, and are known as soon as seen. Zingari is always a tramp and a tinker; the Jew, as much a traveller and money-changer among modern nations as when the usurers were scourged from the Temple of old. Denizens in lands with the richest soils, the Jew never tills the ground for subsistence.

The

Not only do striking differences exist among races and nations, but among people of the same tribe and kindred. Though there is a general similitude in the same family,

and one brother may be distinguished by another, the son by his resemblance to his father or mother, or both, yet each will have his own peculiar features and turn of mind. I have seen twins alike in every feature of face and bodily proportions, yet in taste and inclination there were differences.

This hereditary transmission of features is strikingly illustrated in the families of reigning dynasties, and among the nobility; as in the Bourbons and the House of Austria, in which the thick lip introduced by the marriage of the Emperor Maximillian with Mary of Burgundy, is a prominent feature in their descendants through the generations of 300 years.

Tacitus describes the Gauls as gay, volatile, and precipitate; prone to rush into action, but without the power of sustaining adversity and the protracted tug of strife. And this is the character of the Celtic portion of the French nation, down to the present day. From Cressy to Waterloo we find them the same, brave and impulsive, rather than slow, persistent, and determined, like their neighbours; yet more perceptive and artistic. The modern Germans may be described as in the days of Cæsar-a bold, prudent, and virtuous people, and possessed of great force. The Briton is still cool, considerate, sedate, persistent, and intelligent. The Irish form a marked contrast to the Scotch-the first hasty, irritable, pugnacious, and improvident; the second, cautious and canny, shrewd, calculating, and prudent.

The same law is illustrated in the heritage of disease. No fact in medicine is better established than that which proves the transmission from parents to children of a constitutional liability to pulmonary affections. I have known instances of families of several children, where they have, in some cases, died before maturity, and in others, before middle life, from this hereditary weakness. Dr. Cooper, describing the predisposing indications, mentions—“particular formation of body, obvious by a long neck, prominent shoulders, and narrow chest; scrofulous diathesis, indicated by a very fine clear skin, fair hair, delicate rosy complexion, thick upper lip, a weak voice, and great sensibility." This law of hereditary transmission of organisation, and succession of form and qualities, is manifested also in the mental aptitudes and moral tendencies of children, and shows that the intellectual character of each child is determined by the particular qualities of the stock, combined

with those conditions which predominated in the parents when existence commenced.

Parents frequently live again in their offspring, not only in countenance and form of body, but also in the mental and moral disposition-in their virtues and their vices. Reformers are generally too hasty and impatient in their efforts at improvement. The secret of modifying mankind is but partially understood, nor is it wisely applied; and yet it is a principle powerfully active and very manifest. Great alterations are of slow growth, and most effectively attained by propagation. Three generations, under favourable circumstances, are necessary to effect predisposition or mental tendency. A knowledge of human nature, imparted by a study of Physiology, Ethnology, and Phrenology, would indicate the true course, and give intelligent guidance. To see evils and deprecate their existence, is not adequate to the apprehension of the causes; these lie deeper than existing illustrations. As is the parentage, so is the offspring. In improving one we shall advance the other; and small influences operating constantly through many generations, would necessarily produce marked and conspicuous changes in mankind,—both in the size, external figure, countenance, and complexion; and lastly, in the mental aptitudes and moral proclivities. If the stock is bad, education under favourable influences will improve it, but never succeeds so well as with the offspring of the intelligent. I have had peculiar opportunities for observing this fact, in one case at Ralahine in the South of Ireland, where I resided among the native peasantry, with the object of effecting their physical and moral improvement by the educational agency adopted. Invited thence by Lady Noel Byron to organise what was then an untried scheme-the agricultural and industrial labour system--I introduced a modification of the plans of Fellenberg, with which I became familiar while resident at Hofwyl, in Switzerland. To carry out Lady Byron's wishes, and with her ladyship's resources, I established the first successful agricultural labour school in this country. This became the exampler and foundation of the methods adopted, and now useful and successful, in all our reformatories—in alternating manual work with mental exertion. In these operations I had facilities for observing the varied aptitudes of the pupils. Similar opportunities for observation occurred among some of the students of

twenty classes organised in connection with the Rotherham Literary and Mechanics' Institute-showing in many instances that aptitude, tendency, and even moral dispositions are intimately connected with heritage derived from one or both parents.

I have always found the educational efforts of the offspring of the ignorant, lymphatic and lazy, less apt, more slow and dull, than the children of the intelligent, active, and industrious. Hereditary paupers breed paupers. Idleness is in their bones, apathy in their brains, and vacuity in their visages.

A general co-mixture of the temperaments is most beneficial. Facts show that the nervous and sanguine impart susceptibility and activity; the bilious the power of action; and the lymphatic that tendency to inaction and rest which is essential to the healthful nutrition of the brain after fatiguing exertion. How can this knowledge become useful? By impressing the truth on those likely to be the men and women of the future. As scrofula and insanity are hereditary, so surely temperaments are hereditary. Family portraits indicate family features, and also family temperaments; and those who value the interests and happiness of themselves and their offspring, will subscribe the marriage contract with another of somewhat different temperament. From sluggish temperaments those of an active character rarely descend; from the nervous-sanguine in man and woman, we usually find the same combination in the offspring. If the portrait of Shakspere by Jansen, or the portrait said to be Susanna Hall, which I discovered in the possession of a descendant of the Hathaways, or the Mask said to be taken from the face of Shakspere after death, be faithful likenesses, then the poet was endowed with a nervous-sanguine temperament.

When two persons are united in whom the same kind of temperament prevails, it is not only found in the issue, but in greater strength, and its energy is more intense. The intermarriage of the purely nervous is often followed by delicate, ricketty, and weakly offspring, and there is a hard battle to be fought for a tolerable lease of life; while the continued intermarriage of the lymphatic would ultimately result in the fatuous or idiotic. On the union of mingled temperaments, we generally find those temperaments blend in the offspring with the happiest results to health, vigour, vitality

and longevity. It is a well-established fact, that the distinguished men whose talents make them conspicuous in the cabinet, the camp, or the closet, have had either the nervous-bilious, or the nervous-sanguine temperaments. Temperament is also an element in good taste. The nervous, sanguine, and bilious, by giving fineness to the substance and vivacity to the action of the brain, are highly conducive to refinement. Those authors and artists whose productions are conspicuous for great delicacy and beauty, have fine temperaments, and large perceptive powers, combined with Ideality. We find examples of the active temperaments in Alexander the Great, Julius Cæsar, Charlemagne, William the Norman, Cromwell, Napoleon, Mazzini, and Garibaldi. The poets have a large share of the nervous temperament, as shown in the portraits of Tasso, Dante, Alfieri, Pope, Corneille, Moliere, Voltaire, Pope, Shelley, Keats, Campbell, Lamartine, and Tennyson. So among artizans-those fond of simple and beautiful decorations to make their homes

graceful attractions from grosser pleasures, will be found endowed with a large proportion of activity arising from the temperament. And woman, who possesses more delicacy than man, more natural refinement of manner, has greater aptitude, and a keener appreciation of the elegancies of life.

On the other hand, coarseness and gross habits more frequently co-exist with the opposite conditions. A lady once brought her servant, and requested me to state my opinion about her. After examining her facial and cranial contour, the relative proportions of her brain and her temperament, and finding a low and peculiar organisation, a feeble condition of body, and a dull heavy apathetic aspect,-I told her the girl had the characteristics of a pauper, and would prove cunning, deceitful, and lazy. The lady expressed her surprise, and wished to learn how I could know, for she had obtained her from the workhouse. The girl had been the cause of the death of the cat. Every day the cream vanished, and she attributed it to puss. The cat was killed, and yet the cream still vanished. It was ultimately discovered that the girl lapped the cream from the milk like а kitten, and left no sign on the basin! What is bred in the flesh, will be manifest in the spirit. The sluggishness of the children of hereditary vagrants is notorious. Their brightest attribute is cunning. With a torpid nervous system, they vegetate rather than enjoy life with vigour, and their dull