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I must apologize for anticipating, in this off-hand and very imperfect
manner, the subject of a future chapter by these few remarks; but I am
really obliged to do so, knowing from experience how pertinaciously
strangers to the reasoning by which the laws of heredity are established,
are inclined to prejudge my conclusions, by blindly insisting that the
objection to which I have referred has overbearing weight.
I will now proceed with an examination of what may be learnt from the
relationships of the Judges, First, I would ask, are the abler judges more rich
in eminent relations than those who are less able? There are two ways of
answering this question: the one is to examine into the relationships of the
law lords as compared with that of the puisne judges, or of the chancellors
compared with that of the judges generally; and the other is to determine
whether or no the persons whose names are entered in the third column of
Table I. are above the average of judges in respect to ability. Here are a
few of the Lord Chancellors. There are only 30 of those high legal officers
within the limits of my inquiry, yet 24 of these have eminent relations;
whereas out of the (286 — 30 or) 256 other judges, only (114 — 24 or) 90
have eminent relations. There are therefore 80 per cent. of the chancellors,
as compared to 36 per cent. of the rest of the judges, that have eminent
relations. The proportion would have been greater if I had compared the
chancellors, or the chancellors and the other law lords, with the puisne
judges.
The other test I proposed, is equally satisfactory. There can be no doubt
of the exceptionally eminent ability of the men whose names appear in the
third column. To those who object to my conclusion because Lord
Chancellors have more opportunities of thrusting relatives, by jobbery, into
eminence than are possessed by the other judges, I can do no more than
refer them to what I have
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