to me to be referrible to both causes. The stock must have had some influence, but the mother, in all these cases, is not impressed by her own color, because she does not look on herself; while the father's complexion must strikingly attract her attention, and may, in this way, give the darker tinge to the offspring.*.

4. The idea of the transmission of temporary mental and bodily qualities, is supported by numerous facts tending to show that the state of the parents, particularly of the mother, at the time when the existence of the child commences, has a strong influence on its talents, dispositions, and health.

The father of Napoleon Bonaparte, says Sir Walter Scott, is stated to have possessed a very handsome person, a talent for eloquence, and a vivacity of intellect, which he transmitted to his son.' 'It was in the middle of civil discord, fights, and skirmishes, that Charles Bonaparte married Lætitia Ramolini, one of the most beautiful young woman of the island, and possessed of a great deal of firmness of character. She partook of the dangers of her husband during the years of civil war, and is said to have accompanied him on horseback on some military expeditions, or perhaps hasty flights, shortly before her being delivered of the future Emperor.'-Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, vol. iii. p. 6.

The murder of David Rizzio was perpetrated by armed nobles, with many circumstances of violence and terror, in the presence of Mary, Queen of Scotland, shortly before the birth of her son, afterwards James the First of England. The constitutional liability of this monarch to emotions of fear, is recorded as a characteristic of his mind; and it has been mentioned that he even started involuntarily at the sight of a drawn'sword. Queen Mary was not deficient in courage, and the Stuarts, both before and after James the First, were distinguished for this quality; so that his dispositions were an exception to the family character. * Black hens, however, lay dark-colored eggs.

Napoleon and James form striking contrasts; and it may be remarked that the mind of Napoleon's mother appears to have risen to the danger to which she was exposed, and braved it; while the circumstances in which Queen Mary was placed, were such as inspired her with fear.

Esquirol, a celebrated French medical writer, in adverting to the causes of madness, mentions that many children, whose existence dated from periods when the horrors of the French Revolution were at their height, turned out subsequently to be weak, nervous, and irritable in mind, extremely susceptible of impressions, and liable to be thrown, by the least extraordinary excitement, into absolute insanity.

A lady of considerable talent wrote as follows to a phrenological friend:-' From the age of two I foresaw that my eldest son's restlessness would ruin him; and it has been even so. Yet he was kind, brave, and affectionate. I read the Iliad for six months before he saw the light, and have often wondered if that could have any influence on him. He was actually an Achilles.'*

The following particulars have been communicated to me by the medical friend already alluded to. 'I know an old gentleman,' says he, The children of his first marriage are strong, active, healthy people, and their children are the same. The produce of his second marriage are very inferior, especially in an intellectual point of view; and the younger the children are, the more is this obvious. The girls are superior to the boys, both physically and intellectually: indeed, their mother told me that she had great difficulty in rearing her sons, but none with her daughters. The gentleman himself, at the time of his second marriage, was upwards of sixty, and his wife about twenty-five. This shows very clearly that the boys have taken chiefly of the father, and the daughters of the mother.'

who has been twice married.

*This lady's head is large; in particular, the organs of Combativeness, Self-Esteem, and Firmness, are very large; those of Destructiveness and Adhesiveness are large; and the temperament is very active.

In a case which fell under my own observation, the father of a family became sick, had a partial recovery, but relapsed, declined in health, and in two months died. Seven months after his death, a son was born, of the full age, and the origin of whose existence was referrible to the period of the partial recovery. At that time, and during the subsequent two months, the faculties of the mother were highly excited, in ministering to her husband, to whom she was greatly attached; and, after his death, the same excitement continued, as she was then loaded with the charge of a numerous family, but not depressed; for her circumstances were comfortable. The son is now a young man; and, while his constitution is the most delicate, the development and activity of the mental organs are decidedly greater in him than in any other member of the family.

A lady possessing a large brain and active temperament, was employed professionally as a teacher of music. Her husband also had a fine temperament, and a well constituted brain, but his talents for music were only moderate. They had several children, all of whom were produced while the mother was in the full practice of her profession, and the whole now indicate superior musical abilities. They have learned to play on several instruments as if by instinct, and highly excel. In this case the original endowments of the mother, and her actual exercise of them, conspired to transmit them to her children.

A friend told me that in his youth he lived in a country in which the gentlemen were much addicted to hard drinking; and that he, too frequently, took a part in their revels. Several of his sons, born at that time, although subsequently educated in a very different moral atmosphere, turned out strongly addicted to inebriety; whereas the children born after he had removed to a large town and formed more correct habits, were not the victims of this propensity. Another individual, of superior talents, described to me the wild and mischievous revelry in which he indulged at the time of his marriage, and congratulated

himself on his subsequent domestication and moral improvement. His eldest son, born in his riotous days, notwithstanding a strictly moral education, turned out a personification of the father's actual condition at that time; and his younger children were more moral in proportion as they were removed from the period of vicious frolics. The mother, in this case, possessed a favorable development of brain.

The Margravine of Anspach observes, that when a female is likely to become a mother, she ought to be doubly careful of her temper; and, in particular, to indulge no ideas that are not cheerful, and no sentiments that are not kind. Such is the connection between the mind and body, that the features of the face are moulded commonly into an expression of the internal disposition; and is it not natural to think that an infant, before it is born, may be affected by the temper of its mother?'—Memoirs, vol. ii. chap. viii.*

When two parties marry very young, the eldest of their children generally inherits a less favorable development of the moral and intellectual organs, than those produced in more mature age. The animal organs in the human race are, in general, most vigorous in early life, and this energy appears to cause them to be then most readily transmitted to offspring. Indeed, it is difficult to account for the wide varieties in the form of the brain in children of the same family, except on the principle, that the organs which predominate in vigor and activity in the parents, at the time when existence is communicated, determine the tendency of corresponding organs to develope themselves largely in the children. The facts illustrative of the truth of this principle, which have been communicated to me and observed by myself, are so numerous, that I now regard it as extremely probable.

If this be really the law of nature-as there is so great reason for believing it is-then parents, in whom Comba

* See Appendix, No. VII.

tiveness and Destructiveness are habitually active, will transmit these organs, in a state of high development and excitement, to their children; while parents in whom the moral and intellectual organs exist in supreme vigor, will transmit these in greatest perfection.

This view is in harmony with the fact, that children generally, although not universally, resemble their parents in their mental qualities; because, the largest organs being naturally the most active, the general and habitual state of the parents will be determined by those which predominate in size in their own brains; and, on the principle that predominance in activity and energy causes the transmission of similar qualities to the offspring, the children will in this way very generally resemble the parents. But they will not always do so; because even very inferior characters, in whom the moral and intellectual organs are deficient, may be occasionally exposed to external influences which, for the time, may excite these organs to unwonted vivacity; and, according to the rule now explained, a child dating its existence from that period may inherit a brain superior to that of the parent. On the other hand, a person with an excellent moral development, may, by some particular occurrence, have his animal propensities roused to unwonted vigor, and his moral sentiments thrown for a time into the shade; and any offspring connected with this condition, would prove inferior to himself in the development of the moral organs, and greatly surpass him in the size of those of the propensities.

I repeat, that I do not present these views as ascertained phrenological science, but as inferences strongly supported by facts, and consistent with known phenomena. If we suppose them to be true, they will greatly strengthen the motives for preserving the habitual supremacy of the moral sentiments and intellect; since, by our doing so, improved moral and intellectual capacities may be conferred on offspring. If it be true that this lower world is arranged in harmony with the supremacy of the higher faculties, what