this terrible malady, but not every one is | before the world as typical, they commit aware of the extraordinary resemblance a serious error, and they teach questionsometimes manifested in the nature of the able doctrine, because they teach it by attacks, and their periodical recurrence. means of fallacious facts. Let us be underMoreau relates the case of a man who, stood. If it were absolutely certain that greatly agitated by the events of the a man whose family had the "hereditary French Revolution, shut himself up in one taint" could not escape the terrible inherroom from which he never stirred during itance, the moral rule would be clear, the ten years; his daughter, on reaching the verdict against his marrying would be abage at which he was attacked, fell into the solute. But happily this is by no means same state, and could not be made to quit the case. The Law of Variation here inher apartment. Esquirol tells of a lady tervenes. Vulgar observation confirms who in her twenty-fifth year went out of science in declaring this inheritance of inher mind after her accouchement; her sanity to be very uncertain. "La transdaughter was afflicted in the same way, mission héréditaire," says Burdach, in at the same age, and under the same cir- summing up, "ne s'étend, la plupart du cumstances. We cannot here afford space temps, qu'à quelques enfans." In many for more illustrations;* the two just cited cases the malady is not transmitted at all. will suffice to indicate the tragic fact, that That is to say, it is so neutralized by the insanity is not only transmissible, but may influence of the other parent as not to suddenly manifest itself in persons who manifest itself. Out of three children two have hitherto shown no predisposition to may inherit the malady-or only one-or it. The fact forces upon every mind an none. Are all three children to be debarawful sense of responsibility, when a pa- red from marriage on the chance that one rent or guardian has to decide on permit- or all may be affected? But the difficulty ting a marriage where the "hereditary is further complicated. The three childtaint" exists. It is a subject which has ren, let us say, are perfectly healthy, passrecently been handled in four fictions: in ing into manhood and womanhood withthe "House of Raby," in Miss Jewsbury's out once indicating any trace of the dis"Constance Herbert," in Holme Lee's ease; suddenly, in mid-life, the disease "Gilbert Massenger," and in Wilkie Col- breaks out-for we are never certain of lins's "Moncktons of Wincot Abbey." its non-appearance. Again, the three The three first named have used it not marry, have children, and die, without only as a tragic pivot, but as a moral les- manifesting any of the fatal symptoms of son; and in so doing have taken the the disease; yet their children may all be license of fiction to promulgate very abso- insane, because the law of atavism interlute moral views, upon which it is our venes to frustrate calculations. duty to make some remarks. These writers all assume that the transmission of the malady is inevitable, and hence they insist on the duty of renunciation. No one with the "hereditary taint" is justified in marrying. He must bear his burden; he must not compromise for selfish enjoyments the happiness of descendants. Were the problem really so simple as these writers make it, their moral conclusions would be indisputable. But artists are not bound to be physiologists, and are assuredly bad law-givers in such cases. As artists, they employ their permitted license in simplifying the problem of insanity to suit their stories; but when they transcend the limits of Art, and moralize on their selected cases, placing them In mit talen Hn this tonin in With such facts before us, consider the straits into which we are driven by the novelist's verdict. Three perfectly sane people are not to marry because there is a possibility of their one day becoming insane, or of their children inheriting the grandfather's malady. The same difficulty meets us in the case of consumption and scrofula, two diseases equally transmissible and almost as terrible. Are all the families in whom the consumptive "taint" exists to be excluded from marriage? To say so would be to make marriage a rarity, since few indeed among English families could be found, in which no consumption has appeared during two generations. Such difficulties the novelist eludes. in real life these difficulties must be met. For our own parts, while fully sensible of the responsibility, we frankly confess that Yet lovers had already exhibited unequivocal | what is organically acquired becomes orsigns of insanity or consumption. Nor is ganically transmitted, that the brain of a this said from any love of paradox; it is European is twenty or thirty cubic inches quite serious, as the reader will admit, greater than the brain of a Papuan, and when he considers that the probability of that the European is born with aptitudes transmission to children is very uncertain, of which the Papuan has not the remotest and is entirely dependent on the other pa- indication. Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his rent. A man with tubercles already formed very original and remarkable "Principles may marry one woman who shall bear him of Psychology," quotes the evidence of children all perfectly healthy; whereas Lieut. Walpole, that "the Sandwich Isanother woman would bear him children landers, in all the early parts of their eduall inevitably doomed. It is entirely a cation, are exceedingly quick, but not in question of organic combination; one pa- the higher branches; they have excellent rent's influence being neutralized or fos- memories, and learn by rote with wondertered by the influence of another. The same ful facility, but will not exercise their is true, if we take the case of a woman thinking faculty;" which, as Mr. Spencer with tubercle marrying a healthy man. truly observes, indicates that they can receive and retain simple ideas, but are incompetent to the more complex processes of intelligence, because these have not become organized in the race. A similar fact is noticed in the Australians and Hindoos. Nor is this wide difference between them and the European confined to the purely ratiocinative processes; an analogous difference is traceable in their moral conceptions. In the language of the Australians there are no words answering to our terms justice, sin, guilt. They have not acquired those ideas. In all savages the sympathetic emotions are quite rudimentary, and the horror which moves a European at the sight of cruelty would be as incomprehensible to the savage, as the terror which agitates a woman at the sight of a mouse. What we observe in the development from childhood to manhood, we also observe in the development of the Human Family, namely, a slow subjection of the egotistic to the sympathetic impulses. This has been overlooked, or not sufficiently appreciated, in the dispute about a Moral Sense. One school of thinkers has energetically denied that we are born with any Moral Sense; another school has energetically affirmed that we are born with it. And of the two we think the later are nearest the truth. It is certain that we are so organized as to be powerfully affected by actions which appeal to this "Moral Sense," in a very different way from mere appeals to the intellect-the demonstration of abstract right and wrong will never move the mind to feel an action to be right or wrong; were it otherwise, the keenest intellects would also be the kindest and the iustest. Although everything depends on the constitution of the untainted parent, there is a further difficulty with human beings not felt with animals; we allude to affection, which does not spring up when bidden. You may pair your dogs and cattle according to theory; human beings must pair according to far other impulses. Nevertheless, the parent or physician who has to adjudicate in these delicate cases, may gain some guidance from general principles. We have seen that the predominance of one parent mainly consists in a superior potency which is derived from race, age, health, &c. Thus a young man, in whom the hereditary taint is visible, might fall in love with a woman some few years his senior, who, to superiority of age, might add that of belonging to a more vigorous race. There would be scarcely any danger in such a marriage. But reverse the conditions-let the woman be younger and of a less vigorous race, and marriage would present such probabilities of danger that every means of prevention should be employed. At the best, our judgment can be given with great hesitation, for the laws of organic combination, on which parental influence depends, are as yet wholly unknown. We must forbear entering upon the many interesting topics which the application of the laws of heritage suggest, and conclude this paper with a glance at the influence of these laws in the development of the human race. History is one magnificent corollary on the laws of transmission. Were it not for these laws civilization would be impossible. We inherit the acquired experience of our forefathers the famong l we have never seen the first-named their moral bearings; and it is impossible and sheep; so long as no intermarriage to consider various individuals without takes place, no important change in the perceiving that this aptitude in them varies race can take place, because a race is simnot according to their intellect but accord-ply the continual transmission of organing to their native tendencies in that di- isms. The Scotchman " The Scotchman "caught young," rection. This aptitude to be so affected as Johnson wittily said, will lose some of is a part and parcel of the heritage trans- the superficial characteristics, but will remitted from forefathers. Just as the puptain all the national peculiarities of his py pointer has inherited an aptitude to race; and so will the Irishman. "We "point"-which, if it do not spontaneous- know," says Mr. Spencer, "that there are ly manifest itself in "pointing," renders warlike, peaceful, nomadic, maritime, him incomparably more apt at learning it hunting, commercial races-races that are than any other dog-so also has the Euro- independent or slavish, active or slothful; pean boy inherited an aptitude for a cer- we know that many of these, if not all, tain moral life, which to the Papuan would have a common origin; and hence there be impossible. "Hereditary transmission," can be no question that these varities of says Mr. Spencer, "displayed alike in all disposition have been gradually induced the plants we cultivate, in all the animals and established in successive generations, we breed, and in the human race, applies and have become organic." This, indeed, not only to physical but to psychical pe- is evident à priori: we have already seen culiarities. It is not simply that a modi- that the instincts and habits, even the trified form of constitution, produced by new fling peculiarities of an individual, have a habits of life, is bequeathed to future ge- tendency to become transmitted, and, nerations; but it is, that the modified ner- what is true of the individual, is true of vous tendencies produced by such new the race.* habits of life are also bequeathed: and if the new habits of life become permanent, the tendencies become permanent."* As a consequence of this inheritance we have what is called National Character. The Jew, whether in Poland, in Vienna, in London, or in Paris, never altogether merges his original peculiarities in that of the people among whom he dwells. He can only do this by intermarriage, which would be a mingling of his transmitted organization with that of the transmitted organization of another race. This is the mystery of what is called the "permanence of races." The Mosaic Arab preserves all the features and moral peculiarities of his race, simply because he is a descendant of that race, and not a descendant of the race in whose cities he dwells. That the Jew should preserve his Judaic character while living among Austrians or English, is little more remarkable than that the Englishman should preserve his Anglo-Saxon type while living-among oxen "Principles of Psychology," p. 526. In this work Heritage, for the first time, is made the basis of a psychological system; and we especially recommend any reader interested in the present article, to make himself acquainted with a treatise in every way so remarkable. VOL. XXXIX.-NO. I. It is owing to the transmission of incidentally acquired characters that every great movement in human affairs achieves much more than its immediate object. It tends to cultivate the race. How could that new, unheard-of feeling for the wives widows, and orphans of soldiers, which so honorably distinguished the war just closed, have ever arisen, had not the sympathetic feelings of the race been cultivated during centuries of slow revolution ? How could Englishmen manifest their sturdy political independence, their ineradicable love of liberty so strikingly contrasted with the want of that feeling in other nations, had not our whole history been one bequeathed struggle against the encroachments of governments? It is, however, needless to continue: whenever we look in physiological, psychological, or sociological questions, we are certain to observe the operation of the laws of Hereditary Transmission. * M. Gosse, in a recently published "Essai sur les Déformations artificielles du Crâne" (Geneva, 1855), shows that the forms artificially impressed on the skull during successive generations tend to become hereditary, and that, consequently, we must assign less value than has been hitherto assigned to those characteristics of distinct races which the forms of the skull have supplied. 2 From the Dublin University Magazine. DANIEL FEW lives have been more active, and more fruitful of results than was that of Daniel De Foe. He was a hero from the day he left school at Newington, till he died full of years and worn by poverty. But he had to share the fate that many not less noble men had experienced before and have toiled under since his time. His heroism was misunderstood. His moral constitution, like his wit, was beyond his era, and he was doomed to undergo the ill as well as the good of that fortune. Enemies hated him, and friends mistrusted him. In his life he without doubt knew many who admired him, like honest Dunton, for his honesty, his subtlety, his daring, and his perseverance, but very few were the educated men who sincerely wished him well. He has been dead over a hundred and twenty years, and has now plenty of defenders, Hazlitt, Lamb, Forster! What living (much more dead) man can want more applauders? We may wonder if, in the unknown land, he takes pleasure in thinking how he has been righted. Perhaps he looks on and says, "I knew it would be so;" or maybe he mutters, a pity these pleasant compliments did not come a hundred and fifty years sooner-at Guildhall and St. James's." 66 Daniel De Foe was born in 1661, in the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate. His grandfather was a substantial yeoman at Elton, rich enough to keep hounds. His father carried on the degrading vocation of a butcher. So did Wolsey's father. Mrs. Nickleby asks how this comes, whether there may not be something in the suet. The butcher, however, did his utmost to be a good man; he was a rigid dissenter, and died rich. Daniel was early indoctrinated into the religious principles of his parents, by the Presbyterian Dr. Annesley, the ejected parson of Cripplegate. It was a common thing in that age for clergymen to relinquish their benefices rather than act against conscience, and their doing so was held as a matter of course; but now such a divine is a rarity, and newspapers enlarge on him as a miracle of probity. This good doctor inspired his pupil with no little fervor for the gospel. A panic spread amongst God-fearing nonconformists that the arm of the law would strip them of their bibles; so forthwith, all the country over, there were simple families hard at work making copies of the scriptures, so that if the printed word should be taken from them, they might still have the blessed books in manuscript. Little Dan, then quite a child, copied out the whole of the Pentateuch, and then-stuck fast. Poor little Dan! Cannot one see at this day his inked finger-nails, and imagine how his wee hands ached? Perhaps, moreover, when the young scribe stopped, and said he could not go on further, Pastor Annesley reproved him and called him lukewarm! At fourteen years of age, Daniel De Foe (or Foe as he was then called,) entered the once famous dissenting academy at Newington; and after four years' study left that nursery, by no means a good classic-which of course he would have been had he been educated at Oxford. At twenty-one years, he dipped his pen in the ink, and sat down to do battle. The title of his book ran: "Speculum Crape-gownorum; or, a Looking-glass for the young Academics, new foyled, etc. By a guide to the Inferior Clergie. London: 1682." Roger L'Estrange, who was the author of the "Guide to the Inferior Clergy," was deeply obliged by the attention. Oh, pray, don't mention it," Daniel replied, "one good turn deserves 66 another." This was in 1682. Richard Steele and Addison were respectively about eleven and ten years of age. In 1685, Charles II. died. By this event De Foe was doubtless not a little affected. A clear-headed, sagacious young just as the whim took them. We could point to many unaffected and honorable gentlemen of that time, who changed from one mode of spelling their names to another, much in the same way as they might take a new wine into favor for man, of pure manners, and enthusiastic In 1688, he becomes a liveryman of London. In 1688 also, other events, almost as important, take place. William the Third lands, and James, king of England, jure divino, runs away. The young London trader was up again. On to the death for freedom of thought! He was one of those who guarded William at Henley, and in 1689 he rode among the guard of honor who surrounded William and Mary when they paid a visit to the city. The great William had a cordial admiration for his sagacious, active, and truly noble subject. The hose-factor participated largely in the secret councils of his sovereign, and was honored with employment on more than one important service. Just about, and for some time after the revolution, Defoe resided at Tooting, where he was surrounded with the signs of prosperity, and moreover kept his coach. At Tooting he exerted himself successfully to bring the dissenters of the place into a regular congregation. At this period of his life he was involved in commercial affairs-as a city man on Cornhill, as a Spanish merchant (or peddlar, as his opponents suggested), and as a large proprietor in the tile-kiln and brick-kiln works at Tilbury, Essex. The exact points of time when he entered into these two latter speculations cannot be fixed. That contest ended in favor of the worse side; and the land was chastened and corrected for its impiety, by its divinely appointed ruler. Daniel Foe escaped to the Continent. Where he went, one cannot exactly say. But he was, ere he died, what was accounted in those times a very travelled man, being familiar with France, Germany, and Spain. On returning from foreign lands, which he did after an absence of not many months, he either commenced or resumed business as a hose-factor, in Freeman's-court, Cornhill. His political enemies deemed this a highly comtemptible proceeding. What, sell stockings behind a counter? Pope and Gay shuddered at the thought; Swift, who had never occupied a position lower than that of a menial in a great man's house, gave a grin of contempt; and a pack of ignorant rogues, who tried to cover their moral turpitude under the name of literature, and who had not among them a decent pair of stockings, wrote ungrammatical doggrel on the hose-factor's degradation. De Foe, probably only out of pure mischief and just to give his pursuers the slip for a few seconds, replied, "But, I don't sell Severe reverses in business soon befel stockings. You're in the wrong, gentle- him-from what cause it cannot be said, men; I am not so base a thing as a retail but certainly not from want of industry on dealer, but a negociator between the his part. In 1692, he failed; and retired manufacturer and the small merchant." to Bristol to be for a while out of the way "Just hearken to him," exclaimed the of his creditors. It is by the world's treatgentlemen who a day before had said any-ment of a man when in adversity that we body ought to blush to deal in stockings, etc., "just hearken to him! The man is ashamed of his calling." It was also about this time De Foe put the prefix of De before his name. What led him to do so it would be hard to say. Probably he fanced De made Foe sound prettier. This step again brought on him a vast amount of ridicule; although it was then the custom for gentlemen to alter the spelling of their names, to put in an a or take it out, best see some features of his character. Creditors neither are nor ever have been a very merciful class of men; but Defoe's, so high a sense had they of his honor, took his personal security for the amount of composition on his debts. But being legally freed from liabilities was with Defoe very different from being morally liberated. A large portion of his laborious existence was devoted to discharging debts from which his composition had in |