For the scientific explanation of this fact I must refer you to _The
Germ Plasm_, by Weissmann.
For our purposes it is enough to know that brothers and sisters do vary
from each other, and that they so vary because the ancestral qualities
are not evenly distributed amongst the "sperms" and the "ova." On this
head our own knowledge and observation do not leave any room for doubt.
It is as if in the case of our marriage of Red-Blue and Black-Yellow
there were three child-bottles, of which one got more red and yellow,
one more blue and red, and one more yellow and blue than the others. So
that the three brother-bottles would differ from their fore-parents and
from each other.
And as it would be foolish to blame the second bottle for having less
red in it than the first, so it is foolish to blame a human child for
having less intellect or less industry than his brothers.
If you refer to the masterly description of the impregnation of the ova
given in Haeckel's great work, _The Evolution of Man_, you will find
that the heredity of brothers is largely a matter of accident. See the
plate and explanation on page 130 in the first volume.
The "variation" in brothers and sisters is like the variation in the
mixing of beads in our bottles.
It is as though we made several tartan plaids of the same four colours,
but in different patterns.
It is like dealing hands of cards from a shuffled pack. There are four
suits, but one hand may be rich in clubs, another in diamonds.
And who in a game of whist would blame his partner for holding no trumps
in his hand? The partner could only play the trumps dealt out to him.
In no way can a child control the pre-natal shuffling or dealing of the
ancestral pack.
Now, as to atavism, or breeding back. In the ancestral bottles called
men and women there are millions of different kinds of beads. And it
sometimes happens that a particular kind of bead (or quality) which has
lain dormant for a long time--perhaps for a thousand years--will crop
up in a new mixing that goes to make a "child-bottle," and so that child
may be less like its own parents than like some ancestor who has been
dead and forgotten for centuries.
In the case of the man with the seven ape muscles, mentioned by Darwin,
the breeding back must have reached millions of years.
This "lying doggo," or inactive, of some hereditary trait, may be
likened to the action of a kaleidoscope. We do not see all the fragments
of coloured glass at every turn. But they are all there.
We do not see the same pattern twice; yet the patterns are made almost
of the same colours and the same pieces.
And now I think we have got a clear idea of the meanings of the words
"heredity," "variation," and "atavism," and the most timid reader will
not be afraid of them any more.
There is no need, for our purpose, to wrestle with severe science. The
reader may find for himself all about "pangenesis" in Darwin, and about
the "germ plasm" in Weissmann. Here we will not tax our memories
with such weird words as "biophors," "gemmules," "ids," "idents," and
"determinants." Our similes of beads, tartans, and cards will serve us
well enough.
The only objection to our similes is that they are too simple.
The mixture of bloods in descent is very much more extensive | than our
mixture of cards or beads.
If we trace a child's descent back only four generations we find that
he has no less than thirty fore-parents belonging to sixteen different
families. Another generation would reach thirty-two families. If we go
back to twenty generations we find the number of families drawn upon to
be over a million.
But Darwin speaks of "thousands of generations." Does not! this suggest
the wonderful possibilities of variation and atavism?
Imagine the variety of character and physique in a city like London.
Then remember that each one of us is descended from more ancestors, and
of much wider varieties, than all the population of London. And to hold
a man answerable for his inheritance from those motley myriads of men
and women is to hold him answerable for the natures and the actions of
millions of human beings whom he never saw, of whom he never heard.
We all know that the different races of men differ from each other in
colour, in features, and in capacity. We have only to think for a little
of the Japanese, the Americans, the Spaniards, and the Swedes, to feel
the full force of the term "racial characteristics."
We know that there is a great difference between the Irish and the
Scotch. We know that there is a great difference between the Italians
and the Dutch. We know the strongly marked peculiarities of the Jews and
the Greeks.
Now, to blame a man for his nature is to blame him for not being like
some other man. And how absurd it would be to blame a Norwegian for not
being like a Jew, or a Gascon for not being like a Scot.
The Italians are wayward and impulsive: the Dutch are steadfast and
cautious. Is it reasonable to blame the one for not being like the
other?
If a child is born of an Italian father and an Irish mother, is it
reasonable to expect that child to be as cool and methodical as the
child of Dutch and Scottish parents?
Is it not the same with personal as with racial traits?
We have all heard of "Spanish pride," and of "Irish wit"; we have all
heard of the pride of the Howards, and the genius of the Bachs.
To blame a Spaniard for being proud is to blame him for being born of
Spanish parents. To blame a Howard for his pride is to blame him for
being a son of the Howards.
Bach was a musical genius, Sheridan was witty, Nelson was brave,
Rembrandt was a great painter, because there were golden beads in their
ancestral bottles. But _they_ did not put the golden beads there. They
inherited them, as Lord Tomnoddy inherits his lands, his riches, and his
plentiful lack of wit.
We should not expect the daughter of Carmen to be like the daughter
of Jeannie Deans, nor the son of Rawdon Crawley to be like the son of
Parson Adams. We should, indeed, no more think of praising a man for
inheriting the genius or the virtues of his ancestors, than we should
think of praising a man for inheriting his parents' wealth.
We have laughed over the Gilbertian satire on our patriotic
boastfulness:
For he himself has said it,
And it's greatly to his credit,
That he is an Englishman.
He might have been a Rooshian,
A Frenchman, Turk, or Prooshian,
Or even Italian;
But in spite of all temptations
To belong to other nations,
He remains an Englishman.
All of us can feel the point of those satirical lines; but some of
us have yet to learn that a man can no more help being born "good" or
"bad," "smart" or "dull," than he can help being born English, French,
or Prooshian, or "even Italian."
Some of our ancestors conquered at Hastings, and some of them did not
Some of our ancestors held the pass at Thermopylae, and others ran away
at Bunker's Hill. Some were saints, and some were petty larcenists; some
were philosophers, and some were pirates; some were knights and some
were savages; some were gentle ladies, some were apes, and some were
hogs. And we inherit from them all.
We are all of us great-great-grandchildren of the beasts. We carry the
bestial attributes in our blood: some more, some less. Who amongst us
is so pure and exalted that he has never been conscious of the bestial
taint? Who amongst us has not fought with wild beasts--not at Ephesus,
but in his own heart?
Some of our ancestors wore tails! Is it strange that some of our
descendants should have what Winwood Reade called "tailed minds"? The
ghosts of old tragedies haunt the gloomy vestibules of many human minds.
The Bottom Dog may often be possessed of ancestral devils.
He that is without inherited taint among us, let him cast the first
stone.