But claims for respect
made on that ground alone are, from a biological point of view,
negligible, if the hero is several generations removed. What Sir Francis
Galton wrote of the peers of England may, with slight alterations, be
given general application to the descendants of famous people:
"An old peerage is a valueless title to natural gifts, except so far as
it may have been furbished up by a succession of wise intermarriages....
I cannot think of any claim to respect, put forward in modern days, that
is so entirely an imposture as that made by a peer on the ground of
descent, who has neither been nobly educated, nor has any eminent
kinsman within three degrees."
But, some one may protest, are we not shattering the very edifice of
which we are professed defenders, in thus denying the force of heredity?
Not at all. We wish merely to emphasize that a man has sixteen
great-great-grandparents, instead of one, and that those in the maternal
lines are too often overlooked, although from a biological point of view
they are every bit as important as those in the paternal lines. And we
wish further to emphasize the point that it is the near relatives who,
on the whole, represent what one is. The great family which for a
generation or two makes unwise marriages, must live on its past
reputation and see the work of the world done and the prizes carried
away by the children of wiser matings.
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