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Inquiries into Human Faculty
the century.’ The growth of 80 was sudden, and has remained constant ever since.
This is the only case known to me of a new stage in the development
of a Number-Form being suddenly attained.
DESCRIPTION OF PLATE III.
Plate III. is intended to exhibit some instances of heredity. I have no
less than twenty-two families in which this curious tendency is hereditary,
and there may be many more of which I am still ignorant. I have found it
to extend in at least eight of these beyond the near degrees of parent and
child, and brother and sister. Considering that the occurrence is so rare as
to exist in only about one in every twenty-five or thirty males, these
results are very remarkable, and their trustworthiness is increased by the
fact that the hereditary tendency is on the whole the strongest in those
cases where the Number-Forms are the most defined and elaborate. I give
four instances in which the hereditary tendency is found, not only in
having a Form at all, but also in some degree in the shape of the Form.
Figs. 46-49 are those of various members of the Henslow family,
where the brothers, sisters, and some children of a sister have the
peculiarity.
Figs. 53—54 are those of a master of Cheltenham College and his
sister.
Figs. 55—56 are those of a father and son; 57 and 58 belong to the
same family.
Figs. 59—60 are those of a brother and sister.
The lower half of the Plate explains itself. The last figure of all, Fig.
65, is of interest, because it was drawn for an intelligent little girl of only
11 years old, after she had been closely questioned by the father, and it
was accompanied by elaborate coloured illustrations of months and days
of the week. I thought this would be a good test case, so I let the matter
drop for two years, and then begged the father to question the child
casually, and to send me a fresh account. I asked at the same time if any
notes had been kept of the previous letter. Nothing could have come out
more satisfactorily. No notes had been kept; the subject
