"He was also much consulted by private persons about their affairs, when any difficulty occurred, and frequently chosen an arbiter between contending parties."

Yet he probably owed still more to his MOTHER than father. Her father, Peter Folger, was a man of great strength of intellect, soundness of judgment, and moral worth; as were also his father and his father's brothers. His descendants, too, down to the present time, evince those very mental characteristics which Franklin possessed, as well as resemble him in looks 323 and form of head.

WALTER FOLGER, a lineal descendant of Peter, of Nantucket, is a truly great man, whether we consider his remarkable ability to acquire and retain knowledge, or his mechanical and inventive genius, or his astronomical and philosophical powers, or his strong common sense, or all combined. When only 22, he invented and constructed the most remarkable clock in the world. It shows the time of day, day of the month, rising and setting of the sun and moon, the year, the revolutions of the planets, one of which it requires 120 years to perform, and many kindred astronomical phases, and is so ingeniously constructed that he offers to GIVE it to any one who will take it apart and put it together again right. At exactly 12 o'clock of every new year, the 18 remains, and the 38, or 40, or 47, or whatever the new year may be, appears in place of the old, and thus of the other things it chronicles.

He constructed a telescope, even to the grinding of his own lens-the very nicest piece of mechanism imaginable— with his own hands, with which he has discovered things in the moon and stars not discoverable even with Herschel's great telescope, and is one of the greatest-probably the firstastronomer in the world. By a rigid and most intricate mathematical calculation, he invented the form of barrel which allows the greatest amount of oil to be stored in the smallest space, which has saved millions of dollars to his native island alone. His descendants are also great mathematicians, and remarkably ingenious, as are all the Folgers in Nantucket.

BACON'S ANCESTRY.

225

LUCRETIA MOTT, "the Quaker preacher," was a Folger, descended from the same Peter Folger, and has the same high, broad, and capacious forehead, or prodigious organs of CAUSALITY, which characterize Franklin's head, and appertain to the Folgers generally. She also stands unsurpassed by any of her sex for power of thought, discrimination, reasoning, and general strength of intellect. Thus this Folger family, as far as it can be traced, is distinguished for those same mental powers which constituted the prince of American philosophers.

LORD BACON also inherited his mighty intellect. For powers of reasoning no age has ever produced his equal. His maternal grandfather, Sir Anthony Cook, distinguished himself for his universal genius and talents. Besides being a perfect master of the languages, he excelled in history, poetry, and the mathematics. Of Anne, Lord Bacon's mother, Macauley remarks thus :—

"She was distinguished both as a linguist and a theologian. She corresponded in Greek with Bishop Jewel, and translated his APOLOGIA from the Latin so correctly, that neither he nor Archbishop Parker could suggest a single alteration. She also translated a series of sermons on Fate and Free-will, from the Tuscan of Bernardo Ochino." "Her parental care of her two sons, Anthony and Francis, two of the most extraordinary men of her time, or, indeed, of any time, is, possibly, the best test of her powers, which was deeply felt by Francis, who in his will says: For my burial, I desire that it may be in St. Michael's church, near St. Alban's-there was my mother buried.' In Birch's Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, the extraordinary vigilance used by Lady Anne in superintending their conduct long after they were adults, may be seen."

66

Sir Nicholas Bacon," continues Macauley, "was no ordinary man; but the fame of the father was thrown into shade by that of the son." "Sir Nicholas Bacon," says Lloyd, 66 was a man full

of wit and wisdom. He had the deepest reach of any man at the council-table; the knottiest head to pierce into difficulties; the most comprehensive judgment to surmount the merits of a case; the strongest memory to recollect all the circumstances at one view; the greatest patience to debate and consider, and the clearest reason to urge anything that came in his way in the courts of chancery. His favor was eminent with his mistress, and his alliance strong with her statesmen. He was Lord Keeper of the Great Seal during the time of Elizabeth. He was, in a word, father of his country, and of Sir Francis Bacon."

And now, reader, in the name of inductive reasoning, is it necessary to extend these proofs or illustrations, that the entire MENTALITY, as well as physiology, is transmitted? What reader, of common observation, has not seen analogous FACTS sufficient, not only to establish every point adduced in this treatise, but to enforce the strictly inductive inference, that EVERY PHYSICAL CONDITION, EVERY FACULTY OF MIND, EVERY ELEMENT OF OUR COMPLICATED BEING, IS INHERITED

by offspring, and in that DEGREE of relative energy in which it exists in the parentage? All the observations I have ever made on parents and their offspring-and my practice has been neither small nor restricted in range-has proved this law, in its application to the phrenological organs, and therefore, this science being true, to the mental FACULTIES. Biography is replete with proofs of this principle. Every race, nation, city, town, hamlet, and family, in the whole WORLD—THE ENTIRE HUMAN FAMILY attest, in ever-living, speaking FACTS, the great truth of hereditary descent, of which this volume is the humble exponent, and to question it is to contradict the plainest truths of natural science, and deny our own senses and selves. Every human being is nature's witness that "LIKE BEGETS LIKE," in the world of MIND as in that of flesh and blood. Nor general example merely, but also SPECIFIC; for, since some elements are transmitted, of course ALL physical conditions, and all the 324 345. SHADES AND PHASES OF CHARACTER, are equally so Behold the ACCUMULATIVE force of these proofs and illustrations, acquired by that vast range of FACTS embodied in this volume, and scattered throughout universal nature, and learn therefrom the great PRACTICAL lesson it teaches, namely, so to select companions as to secure beauty, health, strength, and high intellectual and moral excellence.

MARRYING IN AND IN DETERIORATES PROGENY. 227

SECTION VIII.

THE OFFSPRING OF KINSMEN INFERIOR TO THEIR PARENTS.

376. THE CHILDREN OF COUSINS.

THOUGH the correctness of this general law, that offspring inherit the mental and physical characteristics of their parents, is unquestionable, yet it is modified by several sub-laws, or other hereditary principles, one of which is that the children of near relatives either fall far below their parentage, or else are mal-formed or idiotic. That all kinds of domestic animals are improved by "CROSSING THE BREED," but deteriorated by "bending in and in," is a fact known experimentally to every tyro in stock-raising. This law also governs even seeds—all that propagate.

That this ordinance also governs man, is rendered apparent, not only by nature's absolute requisition, that every human being should have two parents, four grandparents, eight greatgrandparents, sixteen great-great-grandparents, thirty-two of the next, and sixty-four of the next anterior generations, one hundred and twenty of the next, and two hundred and forty of the next, etc.—except where and as far as the offspring of one common ancestor marry each other—but especially by FACTS. The following illustrative cases were furnished by Joshua Coffin.

"I will now relate such facts as have come under my own observation, concerning the consequences of marrying blood relations. Whatever may be the cause, the fact is undeniable, that those families who are so foolish as to intermarry with blood relations, very frequently, if not always, degenerate, both physically and mentally. Independently, therefore, of the divine inspiration of the laws of Moses, they are founded on strict physiological principles, which we should do well always to bear in mind, as they cannot be violated with impunity.

"N. P., of W., Mass., a fine-looking and intelligent man, of good sense, married his own cousin, and what a set of children!

One

of them is clump-footed, another has but one eye, and all three of them are very weak in intellect, small in person, and have heads shaped like a flat-iron, point turned downward, flat on top, and their chin making the point.

"When engaged as a scool-teacher, in M., Mass., in 1829, I had several scholars, among them two sons, by the name of E., one of whom was nearly an idiot, and the other not to be compared to either father or mother in point of intellect. On returning, one evening, from visiting the family, I inquired of my landlady, if Mr. and Mrs. E. were not blood relations; she said yes, they were cousins. I told her I thought so, solely from the fact that the children were so deficient in intellect. On stating this fact to Dr. Wisner, pastor of the Old South Church, Boston, he made the following observation :—" Do you recollect, Mr. Coffin, that singularlooking member of my church, who has the St. Vitus' dance? His parents were cousins.' You never saw such a looking object in your life. He appeared not to have any command over any muscle in his whole body.

"A family in N. B., Mass., where were a number of foolish children, were the offspring of cousins. The Rev. Mr. Duffield, formerly of Philadelphia, mentioned two or three families in the interior of Pennsylvania, who, for the sake of keeping their property among themselves, have married 'in and in' for several generations, till their posterity are nearly idiots. There is a family in E. D., in fact, there are several families of the name, who have intermarried so often, that there is one or more idiots in almost every branch. In fact, no point is better established than this, that breeding in and in' deteriorates the race of men and the breed of cattle, both physically and mentally.

"Those young men, therefore, who wish to have intelligent children, must obtain intelligent women for wives, who are not blood relations."

MR. HALE, Cousin of Joshua Coffin, furnishes the following:

“H. L., of N., Mass., married his second cousin, has one daughter of fourteen, nearly an idiot.

“T. A., married his cousin's daughter, had five girls, no boys, two were complete cripples, and very deficient in intellect-almost idiots-one was quite so-one daughter was married, and died childless. The other two married-the children of one of them are apparently below mediocrity.

"S. L., of N., married his cousin, Miss S. A., they were second cousins, that is, their parents were own cousins-had eight sons and two daughters-all living, 1841-two sons and one daughter are unable to walk, and are hauled about in carriages made for the purpose, their younger child is deaf and dumb, besides being born like the others mentioned. A. L. once told me that he was born well, and that, in early years, he lost his sense of feeling in his toe joints, which afterwards became numb, and, in process of time, to use his own expression, they 'LAPPED,' and so it was, joint after joint, upwards in his arms, as well as his toes and legs, till EVERY JOINT WAS AFFECTED in his whole frame. Perhaps he was about