THE

Journal of Health and Disease.

FEBRUARY, 1846.

PHYSIOLOGY IN REGARD TO THE LAWS OF INCREASE AND THE INFLUENCE OF PARENTS ON OFFSPRING.

CHAPTER III.

SECTION II.-Interesting differences between the members of the same family.— Cases illustrative by Mr. George Combe, and Mr. J. I. Hawkins.-The explanation of the fact, that the children of men of talent are often fools.Notes.

AMONG the numerous exemplifications of the mental and moral influence of the parents on the offspring, a few may be selected, which will present a demonstration of this power, and of the circumstances under which it can be exercised.

When a student at the University of Edinburgh, the writer was elected a member of the Edinburgh Phrenological Society. It was at one of the meetings of the Society that the following history was related, and the reporter, the writer feels almost assured, was the careful-in-assertion Mr. George Combe.

A gentleman in Scotland, of considerable affluence and of favourable position in society, having married a lady corresponding to him in position, had children who were remarkable, as exhibiting, in their confidence, their demand for notice, and other manifestations dependant upon these mental conditions, the effects produced upon the minds of their parents, by being surrounded perpetually with circumstances which had a tendency to develope self-esteem and the love of approbation. Wealth gains so much respect, that its possessors are very apt to form false conceptions; and the whirl in which the pursuits of their mode of life throw the wealthy, has a tendency to prevent the mind from looking in upon itself, and analysing the mental states awakened by the surrounding conditions.

The faculties of self-esteem and love of approbation being

powerful, and being thus perpetually called into activity in the parents, were transmitted in the form of fully developed organs of these faculties in the children.

The parents were far from being mere creatures of self-esteem and love of approbation; they were estimable, kind-hearted persons; but their condition excluded them from the objects developing their finer sympathies, except in conjunction with the gratification of their self-esteem and love of approbation: that is, they were kind to their dependants, because they had been connected with the family; they were liberal in their subscriptions to charities, because it became persons in their rank of life, and of their means, so to be; they were just and honourable, because it would be derogatory to their dignity to be unjust and dishonourable.

Benevolence and conscientiousness were active; but then, in walking out, they always leaned on the right arm of self-esteem, and on the left arm of love of approbation.

After a few years the father was seized with a pulmonary malady, which it was expected would have ended in consumption. He was confined to his room for many months; his affectionate wife devoted her days and nights to him. In this secluded state the blandishments of wealth had little to present; the man became a man; he felt his fellow-creatureship. The bedroom did not present any objects except those having a tendency to induce a passive state, a state most adapted to allow the virtues, if any, in the character, to grow up in their strength and their beauty. This so happened to him. He began to view the world as a place for useful action, and, in that useful action, of enjoyment.

His wife, too, had, in the alternations of despondency and of hope, in connexion with the varying state of her sick husband, a continual succession of emotions, all of which had the tendency to awake the humanity within her. Her mind became calmed down to the sobered realities of existence; she felt the appeal to her higher nature, and listened to the appeal.

Her assiduity was rewarded by her husband's restoration to health.

In a period of less than a year after his restoration, she gave

birth to a child; a child quite the opposite to her other children, a child, in which all the beauties, connected with the finer feelings of man's nature, shone forth. The organisation of the child was different from that of the other children, as the phrenologist would infer. The child was an object of universal love; even his conceited, self-willed brothers loved him, and, what is more, revered him. His loveliness of disposition subdued them; in fact, the heavenliness, if such an expression can be used in reference to earthly beings, of the child, led to many a prophesy on the part of the sage (vetulæ) old women, and to many a fear on the part of the parents and of his brothers, that "the child was too good to live."

Whence all this? whence but from the altered condition of the parents' minds previous to the period of his being begotten? The fact is full of interest, and affords illustrations of much importance.

Another fact may be recorded, presenting illustrations of the same influence under other aspects. It is related by Mr. J. I. Hawkins.

A gentleman, an East Indian, being the son of an East Indian princess by marriage with an Irish gentleman, came to England. Possessed of enormous wealth, he travelled through England, and, in the course of his wanderings, visited, in the interior of the country, a farm-house, in which he met with a handsome, healthy, strong-minded girl of fifteen, the daughter of a military gentleman, deceased. This young girl had been brought up away from the world; she had had a good domestic education, but was allowed to enter into all the romps and rustic activities, for which a country life affords such happy opportunities.

The gentleman proposed marriage. He was accepted, and after marriage he settled in the metropolis.

His wealth and his birth gave him an introduction into the highest society. The royal dukes were often his guests.

Within a year after marriage, he had a child, a daughter, who grew up an amiable young person; but still in her was traceable the rusticity of the country girl.

In about three years after, he had a second daughter, and

this child was a paragon of beauty; had grace in her steps, and had strength of mind correspondent to these beauties of her frame; in fact, her manners had something oriental about them, and this even when, from the loss of all his property, the father was reduced so far that his daughters were obliged to attend to the commonest domestic duties.

How is this difference between the two daughters to be explained? It cannot be referred to the varieties of the condition of the father, for he had been placed always in the most polished society, and had been surrounded continually with circumstances of ease and elegance. It must be from the condition of the mother that an explanation is to be sought.

At the time when the first daughter was begotten, the mother's rusticity as a farm girl was not removed; but by the time of the second daughter's being begotten, the mother had been moving in the circles where grace and elegance, and refinement (however shallow they may be it matters not here to notice,) continuously exercised an influence over her mind; and being herself a woman of strong mind and of natural refinement, she soon received the polish, and transferred this new state to her daughter.

A third illustration, of the influence of parents on their offspring, in connexion with their mental and moral states, has been vouched by Mr. Hawkins.

Mr. Perkins, the celebrated engineer, had two sons, one, born when Mr. Perkins was young, and one, when Mr. Perkins was in mature years. In early life, Mr. Perkins was passionately fond of, and ardently pursued, the pastimes, of hunting, shooting, and fishing, &c.

The son born when Mr. Perkins was thus influenced, the father tried to educate as an engineer, but he never could make him adhere to business; hunting, shooting, fishing, were his delight his business. All means were tried, to bring his mind into the right direction: but in vain, and at length, his father was obliged to send him to America, settle a yearly income on him, and allow him to pursue uninterfered with, his delight in forests as boundless as his desires for wandering could be.

As the father advanced in years, his engineering pursuits occupied nearly the whole of his attention, and created a new state of mind. In this condition his second son was begotten, and is a man who inherits the talents, the industry and the perseverance of his father.

From these facts, and they might be much multiplied, is learned, that not only the foibles, the vices, but the virtues and the beauties of character of the parents are transmitted to the progeny; and what a powerful motive is to be hence gained, to urge parents to attend to their own mental constitution, in order, to give their children a good starting in the race of humanity.

A question here occurs, requiring answer, in connexion with this parental influence, How is it that men of TALENT often have children who are fools?

This question, which seems to imply an objection to the soundness of the preceding deductions, will afford in the reply to it striking evidence to the doctrine of the influence of parents on the offspring.

A man of talent is too often in a false position. He is looked up to and idolised by some; he is sought for and lionised by others. Those who idolise him, do not act upon him very injuriously; their reverence for him prevents their intrusion upon him; but those who lionise him, seek him out, invite him to their parties; they are not satisfied with common stimuli; their appetite palls upon common mental food; they are obliged to obtain the "curry" sharpness and wit of a man of talent.49 The ducal coronet thus bows to the man in mind enthroned. They feed him liberally, they fever him with wine, they energise his brain, by the continual expectation, which they let him know they feel, that he will say fine things. His thoughts flow from him like lightning; they are the products not of healthy activity, but of excitement of mind, and they thus are enervating instead of strengthening.

If

Men of talent thus become creatures of excitement. having children, these, like their parents, are mere creatures of excitement, and often become either fools or idiots.

Men of mind too often act, as if they thought that the living in a mental world frees them from the strict obligations of the