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But Galton has not many examples of this sort to fortify his belief: --

"If the eminent men of any period had been changelings when babies, a very fair proportion of those who survived, and retained their health up to fifty years of age, would, notwithstanding their altered circumstances, have equally risen to eminence." (90)

Mr. Ritchie, in commenting on this opinion, suggests that while it might be true that restless, energetic natures, like D'Alembert or Lord Brougham, would make their way up in spite of all obstacles, it may be doubted if such would be the case with a nature like that of Charles Darwin. He suggests that under many circumstances the struggle for existence may be so severe that strength is exhausted, even in the man of ability. (91)

Since there are no data concerning infants of known descent to warrant any final conclusions as to the force of heredity in pushing the individual away from pauperism or toward it, two other methods of observation, less conclusive but more practicable, have been resorted to. The first is to study the family relations of a large number of conspicuously successful or unsuccessful persons, and learn as far as possible what influence heredity has had in bringing about success or failure. The second method is to study the careers of all the children of a family whose members are in general conspicuous for success or failure, in order to see whether or not the manifest tendency can be accounted for by the influence of environment. This second method is, for the most part, only a way of checking the results obtained by the first. As examples of the first we may summarize, (a) the investigations of Galton regarding relationships of the English judges, and of Woods into the heredity of royalty; (b) Booth's summary of the "Stories of Stepney Pauperism"; (c) the investigation of the almshouse population of New York. As illustrating the results to be got by the second method, some account is given of the study of the Jukes of New York and the Ishmaels of Indiana.

Mr. Galton undertook a study of the English judges between the accession of Charles II and the year 1864. He found that a very large number of these men were related one to another, and an analysis of the facts showed that a very eminent man was more likely to have eminent relations than one who had attained a less degree of success. Out of the two hundred and eighty-six judges, more than one in every nine had been either father, son, or brother to another judge, and the other high legal relationships had been even more numerous. "There cannot remain a doubt," he declares, "but that the peculiar type of ability that is necessary to a judge is often transmitted by descent."

Of the persistence of capacity in certain families he says: --

"The names of North and Montagu, among the judges, introduce us to a remarkable breed of eminent men, set forth at length in the genealogical tree of the Montagus, and again that of the Sydneys (see the chapter on "Literary Men"), to whose natural history -- if the expression be permitted -- a few pages may be profitably assigned. There is hardly a name in those pedigrees which is not more than ordinarily eminent; many are illustrious. They are closely tied together in their kinship, and they extend through ten generations. The main roots of this diffused ability lie in the families of Sydney and Montagu, and, in a lesser degree, in that of North."

F. A. Woods, in a recent study of "Mental and Moral Heredity in Royalty," while avoiding some of Galton's scientific errors, has corroborated his general conclusions. Professor Woods has taken individuals merely by blood relationship and included every one about whom anything could be found. His estimates of their mental and moral qualities are based on the adjectives used in describing them by historians and biographers, and are expressed in a series of grades from one to ten, i.e. low to high, for intellect and morals separately. The accompanying table shows briefly his most important results: --

TABLE XX.
Correlation of Mental and Moral Qualities in 608 Royal Persons. (92)

The persons whose grade for virtue was as low, for instance, as 3, averaged 5.43 for intellect, but in proportion as the grades for virtue rose, the grades for intellect averaged higher.

Woods concludes not merely from these figures but from the history of these persons which he carefully investigated that: (1) there is a very distinct correlation in royalty between mental and moral qualities; (2) analyzing all grades, the higher grades for virtues possess a higher average of intellectual grading, and this rise is almost perfectly uniform for both male and female groups taken separately; (3) among royalty, where large families are always desired, maximum fertility, on the whole, runs hand in hand with general superiority, when tested by the number of children who reached the age of twenty-one years, (4) the rich are not more vicious than the poor, and as to morality, royalty does not make a bad showing.