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282
Hereditary Genius
they may be taken to a considerable extent at their word. It would
appear that their disposition is to sin more frequently and to repent
more fervently than those whose constitutions are stoical, and
therefore of a more symmetrical and orderly character. The
amplitude of the moral oscillations of religious men is greater than
that of others whose average moral position is the same.
The table (p. 34) of the distribution of natural gifts is necessarily as
true of morals as of intellect or of muscle. If we class a vast number
of men into fourteen classes, separated by equal grades of morality
as regards their natural disposition, the number of men per million in
the different classes will be as stated in the table. I have no doubt
that many of Middleton's divines belong to class G, in respect to their
active benevolence, unselfishness, and other amiable qualities. But
men of the lowest grades of morals may also have pious aptitudes;
thus among prisoners, the best attendants on religious worship are
often the worst criminals. I do not, however, think it is always an act
of conscious hypocrisy in bad men when they make pious
professions, but rather that they are deeply conscious of the instability
of their characters, and that they fly to devotion as a resource and
consolation.
These views will, I think, explain the apparent anomaly why the
children of extremely pious parents occasionally turn out very badly.
The parents are naturally gifted with high moral characters combined
with instability of disposition, but these peculiarities are in no way
correlated. It must, therefore, often happen that the child will inherit
the one and not the other. If his heritage consist of the moral gifts
without great instability, he will not feel the need of extreme piety; if
he inherits great instability without morality, he will be very likely to
disgrace his name.
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