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86
Hereditary Genius
Now for the second category, where the son is not eminent, but the
grandson Is. There are only seven of these cases to the (226 — 22 or) 204
judges that remain, and one or two of them are not a very high order. They
are the third Earl Shaftesbury, author of the “Characteristics;” Cowper, the
poet; Lord Lechmere, the Attorney-General; Sir Wm, Mansfield,
Commander-in-Chief in India; Sir Eardley Willmot, who filled various
offices with credit and was created a baronet; and Lord Wyndham, Lord
Chancellor of Ireland. Fielding, the novelist, was grandson of Judge Gould,
by the female line. Hence it is 204 to 7, or 30 to 1, against the non-eminent
son of a judge having an eminent child.
The figures in these two categories are clearly too few to justify us in
relying on them, except so far as to show that the probability of a judge
having an eminent grandson is largely increased if his sons are also
eminent. It follows that the sons or daughters of distinguished men who are
themselves gifted with decidedly high ability, as tested at the University or
elsewhere, cannot do better than marry early in life. If they have a large
family, the odds are in their favour that one at least of their children will be
eminently successful in life, and will be a subject of pride to them and a help
to the rest.
Let us for a moment consider the bearing of the facts just obtained, on the
theory of an aristocracy where able men earn titles, and transmit them by
descent through the line of their eldest male representatives. The practice
may be justified on two distinct grounds. On the one hand, the future peer is
reared in a home full of family traditions, that form his disposition. On the
other hand, he is presumed to inherit the ability of the founder of the family.
The former is a real justification for the law of primogeniture, as applied to
titles and possessions; the latter, as we see from the table, is not. A man
who has
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