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198
Hereditary Genius
kinsmen would have been yet richer than they are. There are several
mathematicians in my appendix, especially the Bernoulli family; but
the names of Pascal, Laplace, Gauss, and others of class G or even
X, are absent. We might similarly have expected that the senior
wranglers of Cambridge would afford many noteworthy instances of
hereditary ability shown in various careers, but, speaking generally,
this does not seem to be the case. I know of several instances where
the senior wrangler, being eminently a man of mathematical genius,
as Sir William Thompson and Mr. Archibald Smith, is related to other
mathematicians or men of science, but I know of few senior
wranglers whose kinsmen have been eminent in other ways. Among
these exceptions are Sir John Lefevre, whose brother is the ex-
Speaker, Viscount Eversley, and whose son is the present Vice-
President of the Board of Trade; and Sir F. Pollock, the ex-Chief
Baron, whose kinships are described in “JUDGES.” I account for the
rarity of such relationships in the following manner. A man given to
abstract ideas is not likely to succeed in the world, unless he be
particularly eminent in his peculiar line of intellectual effort. If the
more moderately gifted relative of a great mathematician can
discover laws, well and good; but if he spends his days in puzzling
over problems too insignificant to be of practical or theoretical import,
or else too hard for him to solve, or if he simply reads what other
people have written, he makes no way at all, and leaves no name
behind him. There are far fewer of the numerous intermediate stages
between eminence and mediocrity adapted for the occupation of men
who are devoted to pure abstractions, than for those whose interests
are of a social kind.
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