The Inheritance of Mental Characters

Abstract

THE reply of Dr. C. Walker to Dr. Archdall Reid in your issue of last week seems to me somewhat quibbling, and suggests that he is not intimately acquainted with Prof. Pearson's Huxley lecture. The particular part of this lecture quoted by Dr. Reid, and referred to by Dr. Walker, reads actually as follows, the italics being Prof. Pearson's own:—“...We have found the same degree of resemblance between physical and psychical characters. That sameness surely involves something additional. It involves a like heritage from parents. The degree of resemblance between children and parents for the physical characters in man may be applied to the degree of resemblance between children and parents for psychical characters. We inherit our parents, tempers, our parents' conscientiousness” (not consciousness as printed in Dr. Reid's quotation), “shyness, and ability, even as we inherit their stature, fore-arm, and span”.