leaves the company of his boisterous playmates and listens to the
echo of celestial harps singing within him. His head is a
cathedral filled with the strains of an imaginary organ. Rich
cadences, a secret concert heard by him and him alone, steep him in
ecstasy. All hail to that predestined one who, some day, will
rouse our noblest emotions with his musical chords. He has an
instinct, a genius, a gift for sounds.

A third, a brat who cannot yet eat his bread and jam without
smearing his face all over, takes a delight in fashioning clay into
little figures that are astonishingly lifelike for all their
artless awkwardness. He takes a knife and makes the briar root
grin into all sorts of entertaining masks; he carves boxwood in the
semblance of a horse or sheep; he engraves the effigy of his dog on
sandstone. Leave him alone; and, if Heaven second his efforts, he
may become a famous sculptor. He has an instinct, a gift, a genius
for form.

And so with others in every branch of human activity: art and
science, industry and commerce, literature and philosophy. We have
within us, from the start, that which will distinguish us from the
vulgar herd. Now to what do we owe this distinctive character? To
some throwback of atavism, men tell us. Heredity, direct in one
case, remote in another, hands it down to us, increased or modified
by time. Search the records of the family and you will discover
the source of the genius, a mere trickle at first, then a stream,
then a mighty river.

The darkness that lies behind that word heredity! Metaphysical
science has tried to throw a little light upon it and has succeeded