lect and morality are due largely to
outward circumstances.

Are "conditions of turmoil, stress and adversity" strong forces in the
production of great men, as has often been claimed? There is no evidence
from facts to support that view. In the case of a few great commanders,
the times seemed particularly favorable. Napoleon, for example, could
hardly have been Napoleon had it not been for the French revolution. But
in general there have been wars going on during the whole period of
modern European history; there have always been opportunities for a
royal hero to make his appearance; but often the country has called for
many years in vain. Circumstances were powerless to produce a great man
and the nation had to wait until heredity produced him. Spain has for
several centuries been calling for genius in leadership in some lines;
but in vain. England could not get an able man from the Stuart line,
despite her need, and had to wait for William of Orange, who was a
descendant of a man of genius, William the Silent. "Italy had to wait
fifty years in bondage for her deliverers, Cavour, Garibaldi and Victor
Emmanuel."

"The upshot of it all," Dr. Woods decides, "is that, as regards
intellectual life, environment is a totally inadequate explanation. If
it explains certain characters in certain instances, it always fails to
explain many more, while heredity not only explains all, or at least
90%, of the intellectual side of character in practically every
instance, but does so best when questions of environment are left out of
discussion."

Despite the good environment almost uniformly present, the geniuses in
royalty are not scattered over the surface of the pedigree chart, but
form isolated little groups of closely related individuals. One centers
in Frederick the Great, another in Queen Isabella of Spain, a third in
William the Silent, and a fourth in Gustavus Adolphus. Furthermore, the
royal personages who are conspicuously low in intellect and morality are
similarly grouped. Careful study of the circumstances shows nothing in
the environment that would produce this grouping of genius, while it is
exactly what a knowledge of heredity leads one to expect.

In the next place, do the superior members of royalty have
proportionately more superior individuals among their close relatives,
as was found to be the case among the Americans in the Hall of Fame? A
count shows at once that they do. The first six grades all have about