uld the offspring be improved if distinguished men
united themselves in marriage to distinguished women for generation
after generation!

INFLUENCE OF FATHERS OVER DAUGHTERS; OF MOTHERS OVER SONS.

We have already called attention to the parts of the physical
organization transmitted by the father and by the mother. It would seem,
moreover, that each parent exercises a special influence over the child
according to its sex. The father transmits to the daughters the form of
the head, the framework of the chest and of the superior extremities,
while the conformation of the lower portion of the body and the inferior
extremities is transmitted by the mother. With the sons this is
reversed. They derive from the mother the shape of the head and of the
superior extremities, and resemble the father in the trunk and inferior
extremities. From this it therefore results, that boys procreated by
intelligent women will be intelligent, and that girls procreated by
fathers of talent will inherit their mental capacity. The mothers of a
nation, though unseen and unacknowledged in the halls of legislation,
determine in this subtle manner the character of the laws.

History informs us that the greater part of the women who have been
celebrated for their intelligence, reflected the genius of their
fathers. Arete, the most celebrated woman of her time, on account of the
extent of her knowledge, was the daughter of the distinguished
philosopher Aristippus, disciple of Socrates. Cornelia, the mother of
the Gracchi, was a daughter of Scipio. The daughter of the Roman emperor
Caligula was as cruel as her father. Marcus Aurelius inherited the
virtues of his mother, and Commodus the vices of his. Charlemagne shut
his eyes upon the faults of his daughters, because they recalled his
own. Genghis-Khan, the renowned Asiatic conqueror, had for his mother a
warlike woman. Tamerlane, the greatest warrior of the fourteenth
century, was descended from Genghis-Khan by the female side. Catherine
de Medicis was as crafty and deceitful as her father, and more
superstitious and cruel. She had two sons worthy of herself,--Charles
IX., who shot the Protestants, and Henry III., who assassinated the
Guises. Her daughter, Margaret of Valois, recalled her father by her
gentle manners. The cruel deeds of Alexander VI., the dark records of
which will for ever stain the pages of history, are only rivaled in
atrocity by those of his children, the infamous Borgias. Ar