tors; and what should be made quite clear is that this
mysterious atavism should not be used by careful speakers, to express
the supposed influence of parents or even grandparents, but that of
more distant ancestors only, and possibly of a whole family.

[4] _Oxford Dictionary_, s. v.; J. Rennie, _Science of
Gardening_, p. 113.

Many biographers, such is the fashion now, begin their works with a
long account not only of father and mother, but of grandparents and of
ever so many ancestors, in order to show how these determined the
outward and inward character of the man whose life has to be written.
Who would deny that there is some truth, or at least some
plausibility, in atavism, though no one has as yet succeeded in giving
an intelligible account of it? It is supposed to affect the moral as
well as the physical peculiarities of the offspring, and that here,
too, physical and moral qualities often go together cannot be denied.
A blind person, for instance, is generally cautious, but happy and
quite at his ease in large societies. A deaf person is often
suspicious and unhappy in society. In inheriting blindness, therefore,
a man could well be said to have inherited cautiousness; in inheriting
deafness, suspiciousness would seem to have come to him by
inheritance.

But is blindness really inherited? Is the son of a father who has lost
his eyesight blind, and necessarily blind? We must distinguish between
atavistic and parental influences. Parental influences would mean the
influence of qualities acquired by the parents, and directly
bequeathed to their offspring; atavistic influences would refer to
qualities inherited and transmitted, it may be, through several
generations, and engrained in a whole family. In keeping these two
classes separate, we should only be following Weismann's example, who
denies altogether that acquired qualities are ever heritable. His
examples are most interesting and most important, and many Darwinians
have had to accept his amendment. Besides, we should always consider
whether certain peculiarities are constant in a family or inconstant.
If a father is a drunkard, surely it does not follow that his sons
must be drunkards. Neither does it follow that all the children must
be sober if the parents are sober. Of course, in ordinary conversation
both parental and ancestral influences seem clear enough. But if a
child is said to favour his mother, because like her he has blue eyes
and fair h