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Hereditary Genius
263
the later biographies, about one-half of them were married, and there
were about 5, or possibly 6, children to each marriage. That is to say,
the number actually recorded gives at the rate of 4.5, but in addition
to these occurs, about once in 6 or 7 cases, the phrase “many
children.” The insertion of these occasional unknown, but certainly
large numbers, would swell the average by a trifling amount. Again, it
is sometimes not clear whether the number of children who survived
infancy may not be stated by mistake as the number of births, and,
owing to this doubt, we must further increase the estimated average.
Now in order that population should not decrease, each set of 4
adults, 2 males and 2 females, must leave at least 4 children who live
to be adults, behind them. In the case of the Divines, we have seen
that only one-half are married men; therefore each married Divine
must leave 4 adults to succeed him, if his race is not to decrease.
This implies an average family of more than 6 children, or, as a
matter of fact, larger families than the Divines appear to have had.
Those who marry, often marry more than once. We hear in all of 81
married men; 3 of these, namely, Junius, Gataker, and Flavel, had
each of them 4 wives; Bucer and Mather had 3; and 12 others had 2
wives each. The frequency with which the Divines became
widowers is a remarkable fact, especially as they did not usually
marry when young. I account for the early deaths of their wives, on
the hypothesis that their constitutions were weak, and my reasons for
thinking so are twofold. First, a very large proportion of them died in
childbirth, for seven such deaths are mentioned, and there is no
reason to suppose that all, or nearly all, that occurred have been
recorded by Middle-ton. Secondly, it appears, that the wives of the
Divines were usually women of great piety; now it will be shown a
little further on, that there is a frequent correlation
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