this, is to doubt what is self-evident; to wish to interpret it, is to wish to explore the inexplicable secret of existence. Striking and frequent as the resemblance between parents and children is, yet have the relations between the characters and countenances of families never been inquired into. No one has, to my knowledge, made any regular observations on this subject. I must also confess, that I myself have made but few with that circumstantial attention which is necessary. All I have to remark is as follows:

When the father is considerably stupid, and the mother exceedingly the reverse, then will most of the children be endued with extraordinary understanding.

When the father is good, truly good, the children will in general be well-disposed; at least most of them will be benevolent.

The son generally appears to inherit moral goodness from the good father, and intelligence from the intelligent mother; the daughter partakes of the character of the mother.

If we wish to find the most certain marks of resemblance between parents and children, they should be observed within an hour or two after birth. We may then perceive whom the child most resembles in its formation. The most essential resemblance is usually afterwards lost, and does not perhaps appear again for many years; or not till after death.

When children, as they increase in years, visibly increase in the resemblance of form and

features to their parents, we cannot doubt but there is an increasing resemblance of character. How much soever the characters of children may appear unlike that of the parents they resemble, yet will this dissimilarity be found to originate in external circumstances; and the variety of these must be great indeed, if the difference of character is not at length overpowered by the resemblance of form.

I believe, that from the strongly delineated father, the firmness and the kind (I do not say the form, but the kind) of bones and muscles are derived; and from the strongly delineated mother, the kind of nerves and form of the countenance; if the imagination and love of the mother have not fixed themselves too deeply in the countenance of the man.

Certain forms of countenance, in children, appear for a time undecided whether they shall take the resemblance of the father or the mother; in which case I will grant, that external circumstances, preponderating love for the father or mother, or a greater degree of intercourse with either, may influence the form.

We sometimes see children who long retain a remarkable resemblance to the father, but at length change, and become more like the mother. I undertake not to expound the least of the difficulties that occur on this subject; but the most modest philosophy may be permitted to compare uncommon cases with those which are known, even though they were inexplicable;

and this, I believe, is all that philosophy can, and ought to do.

We know that all longings, or mother's marks, and whatever may be considered as of the same nature, do not proceed from the father, but from the imagination of the mother. We also know, that children most resemble the father only when the mother has a very lively imagination, and love for, or fear of the husband. Therefore, as has before been observed, it appears that the matter and quantum of the power, and of the life, proceed from the father; and from the imagination of the mother, sensibility, the kind of nerves, the form, and the appear

ance.

There are certain forms and features of countenance which are long propagated, and others which as suddenly disappear. The beautiful and the deformed (I do not say forms of countenances, but what is generally supposed to be beauty and deformity) are not the most easily propagated; neither are the middling and insignificant; but the great and the minute are easily inherited, and of long duration.

Parents with small noses may have children with the largest and strongést defined; but the father or mother seldom, on the contrary, have a very strong, that is to say, large boned nose, which is not communicated at least to one of their children, and which does not remain in the family, especially when it is in the female line. It may seem to have been lost for many years,

but soon or late will again make its appearance, and its resemblance to the original will be particularly visible a day or two after death.

Where any extraordinary vivacity appears in the eyes of the mother, there is almost a certainty that these eyes will become hereditary; for the imagination of the mother is delighted with nothing so much as with the beauty of her own eyes. Physiognomonical sensation has been hitherto much more generally directed to the eye, than to the nose and form of the face; but if women should once be induced to examine the nose, and form of the face, as assiduously as they have done their eyes, it is to be expected that the former will be no less strikingly hereditary than the latter.

Well-arched and short foreheads are easy of inheritance, but not of long duration'; and here the proverb is applicable, Quod cito fit, cito perit. (Soon got, soon gone.)

It is equally certain and inexplicable, that some remarkable physiognomies, of the most fruitful persons, have been wholly lost to their posterity; and it is as certain and inexplicable, that others are never lost. Nor is it less remarkable, that certain strong countenances, of the father or mother, disappear in the children, and perfectly revive in the grand-children.

As a proof of the powers of the imagination of the mother, we sometimes see, that a woman shall have children by the second husband, which shall resemble the first, at least in the

general appearance. The Italians, however, are manifestly too extravagant, when they suppose children, who strongly resemble their father, are base born. They say that the mother, during the commission of a crime so shameful, wholly employs her imagination concerning the possibility of surprise by, and the image of, her husband. But, were this fear so to act, the form of the children must not only have the very image of the husband, but also his appearance of rage and revenge, without which the adulterous wife could not imagine the being surprised by, or image of, her husband. It is this appearance, this rage, that she fears, and not the man.

Natural children generally resemble one of their parents more than the legitimate.

The more there is of individual love, of pure, faithful, mild affection, the more is this love reciprocal and unconstrained between the father and mother, which reciprocal love and affection imply a certain degree of imagination, and the capacity of receiving impressions, the more will the countenances of the children appear to be composed of the features of the parents.

The sanguine of all the temperaments is the most easily inherited, and with it volatility; and, being once introduced, much industry and suffering will be necessary to exterminate this volatility.

The natural timidity of the mother may easily communicate the melancholy temperament of the father. Be it understood that this is easy, if,