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Hereditary Genius
321
equal natural ability, but is not especially educated for professional
life. The large number of artists' sons who have become eminent,
testifies to the strongly hereditary character of their peculiar ability,
while, if the reader will turn to the account of the Herschel family, pp.
215, 2l6, he will readily understand that many persons may have
decided artistic gifts who have adopted some other more regular,
solid, or lucrative occupation.
I have now done with the exceptional cases; it will be observed that
they are mere minor variations in the law expressed by the general
average of all the groups; for, if we say that to every 10 illustrious
men, who have any eminent relations at all, we find 3 or 4 eminent
fathers, 4 or 5 eminent brothers, and 5 or 6 eminent sons, we shall be
right in 17 instances out of 24; and in the 7 cases where we are
wrong, the error will consist of less than 1 unit in 2 cases (the fathers
of the commanders and men of literature), of I unit in 4 cases (the
fathers of poets, and the sons of judges, commanders, and divines),
and of more than I unit in the sole case of the sons of artists.
The deviations from the average are naturally greater in the second
and third grades of kinship, because the numbers of instances in the
several groups are generally small; but as the proportions in the large
subdivision of the 85 Judges correspond with extreme closeness to
those of the general average, we are perfectly justified in accepting
the latter with confidence.
The final and most important result remains to be worked out; it is
this: if we know nothing else about a person than that he is a father,
brother, son, grandson, or other relation of an illustrious man, what is
the chance that he is or will be eminent? Column E in p. 61 gives the
reply for Judges; it remains for us to discover what it is for illustrious
men generally. In each of the chapters I have given such data as I
possessed, fit for combining
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