Mr. Francis Gatton, whose writings on heredity are well known, endeavours in the Fortnightly Review to show the influence and descent of good and bad temper in English families. He says that his object in writing the paper is "to leave a clear impression of the great range and variety of temper among persons of both sexes in the upper and and of being nevertheless as hereditary as any other quality. Also, that although it exerts an immense influence for good or ill on domestic happiness, it seems that good temper is not especially looked for, nor is ill temper especially shunned, in marriage selection." The data which Mr. Galton employs were obtained in confidence from families or members of families who in furnishing him with answers to questions on which he cons-fructed his theoretical laws of heredity, described the "character and temperament" of ancestors and relatives sometimes through three' and sometimes four generations. This information incidentally included what is commonly called the "temper" of no less than 1,981 persons an adequate umber for many deductions. The compilers of this information used fifteen epithets to describe good temper. There were amiable, buoyant, calm, cool, equable, forbearing, gentle, good, mild, placid, self-controlled, submissive, sunny, timid, yielding. For bad temper 46 epithets of great comprehensiveness were used, and from which only the infirmity which Americans describe as "cussedness" has been omitted. These Mr. Galton further subdivided into five small classes—1 mild; 2 docile; 3 fretful; 4 violent; 5 masterful. Comparing the data before him Mr. Galton found that there "is little difference in the sexes in the frequency of good and bad temper, but that little is in favour of the women, since about 45 men are recorded as good tempered for every 55 who are bad, and conversely 55 women as good-tempered for 45 who are bad."
With certain not very important exceptions, which he explains, Mr. Galton says there is not the slightest indication of a dislike in persons of similar tempers whether docile, fretful, violent or master-to marry each other. He also thinks that it is clearly shown by his figures that the tempers of progenitors do not readily blend in the offspring, but that some of the children take mainly after one of them, some after another, but with a few threads,-as it were, of. various ancestral tempers woven in, which occasionally manifest themselves. The different tempers among brothers and sisters are however influenced by other things, such as the prepotence of the progenitor who has stamped more than his or her fair share of qualities on the children. Also, it may be due to the familar occurrence of all the children being alike and yet their common likeness being untraceable to either progenitor. Also some members of a family may be submissive and others domineering by nature and thus a modification of temper is produced. Mr. Galton found that in the history of twins who were closely alike, the statement was constantly met with that one of the twins was guided by the other. He supposed that' after their many childish struggles for supremacy, each finally discovered his relative strength of character, and henceforth the stronger developed into the leader, while the weaker contentedly subsided into the position of being led. Then, again, a member of an eas; going family becomes persistently dis agreeable in order to obtain the first and best of everything, and readers will remember that Thackerary showed how a man or woman with a bad temper got everything he or she wanted, relatives trembling and fawning before them as they hastened to do or anticipate their bidding. - Mr. Galton's recapitulation of these family influences is, that one set of them tends to mix good and bad tempers in a family at haphazard, one set tends to assimilate them so that they shall be all good or all bad, and a third set tends to divide each family into contrasted portions.
In dealing with the inguiry, Do parents have children with their own tempers? Mr. Galton had forty-three cases of good-tempered and twenty-five cases of bad-tempered parents before him. Out of the children of the former 30 per cent. were good-tempered, and 10 per cent. bad, but of the latter 4 per cent. were good and 52 per cent. bad-tempered. "his he regards as emphatic testimony to the heredity of temper. Mr Galton was even more successful, he considers, with the con+ verse question, Do good or bad tempered families have, on the whole good or bad-tempered ancestors? He says:—"I have forty-six good-tempered families, with an aggregate of 333 parents, uncles, and aunts; and 71 bad-tempered families, with 633 parents, uncles, and aunts. In the former group, 26 per cent. were good-tempered and 18 bad; in the latter group, 18 were good-tempered and 29 were bad, the remainder being neutral. These results are almost the exact coun-is of one another, so I seem fo have made good hits in framing the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.