VII. It is true, that in a certain manner the excellencies of our progenitors illustrate us, but they illustrate us as the sun does the moon, by exposing our spots and blemishes if we degenerate from them. I have seen, in some coats of arms, stars quartered, which seems as if he who acquired this blazon gained it by his merit; because, after the manner of a star, he shone by his own light. It is probable, that in many of his successors they should take away the stars, and substitute moons in their places, to denote that they only shine like this luminary by virtue of a borrowed light. The following eulogium, which Velleius Paterculus bestowed on Cicero, always appeared to me extremely elegant and magnificent: _Per hæc tempora Marcus Cicero, qui omnia incrementa sua sibi debuit, vir novitatis nobilissimæ, &c._ Cicero owed all his fortune to himself, because although he sprung from an obscure family, he without any other support but that of his own merit ascended to the first honours of Rome. I would much rather this should be said of me, than that I was descended in a right line from Augustus Cæsar. SECT. II. VIII. But there is no necessity for dwelling upon a subject which is common, and on which so many and so fine things have been written, that all I could add to them would be like contributing a small fountain to the ocean, or a little stone to the mountain of Mercury. My intention is only to banish a vulgar error which is entertained of this matter, and which ferments greatly in the imaginations of people of quality. IX. It is commonly said, that good or bad blood has its occult influence on thoughts and actions, and that as in the ordinary course of nature the genus of the tree follows that of the seed, and the fruit that of the tree; so it is with mankind, who, according to the stock from whence they are derived, copy after the customs and manners of their ancestors. This prepossession in favour of nobility is so general among the vulgar, that there are several adages made use of in their common conversation to express it; and you will at every turn, when a man well born has done a bad action, hear them say, he has not behaved like what he is; as on the contrary, if the same thing is related of a poor man, they answer, you could not expect any better of him, considering from whence he sprung.