The eleventh chapter treats of Heredity, and affirmatively answers the
question whether patterns are transmissible by descent. The inquiry proved
more troublesome than was expected, on account of the great variety in
patterns and the consequent rarity with which the same pattern, other than
the common Loop, can be expected to appear in relatives. The available
data having been attacked both by the Arch-Loop-Whorl method, and by a
much more elaborate system of classification--described and figured as the
C system, the resemblances between children of either sex, of the same
parents (or more briefly "fraternal" resemblances, as they are here
called, for want of a better term), have been tabulated and discussed. A
batch of twins have also been analysed. Then cases have been treated in
which both parents had the same pattern on corresponding fingers; this
pattern was compared with the pattern on the corresponding finger of the
child. In these and other ways, results were obtained, all testifying to
the conspicuous effect of heredity, and giving results that can be
measured on the centesimal scale already described. But though the
qualitative results are clear, the quantitative are as yet not well
defined, and that part of the inquiry must lie over until a future time,
when I shall have more data and when certain foreseen improvements in the
method of work may perhaps be carried out. There is a decided appearance,
first observed by Mr. F. Howard Collins, of whom I shall again have to
speak, of the influence of the mother being stronger than that of the
father, in transmitting these patterns.
In the twelfth chapter we come to a branch of the subject of which I had
great expectations, that have been falsified, namely, their use in
indicating Race and Temperament. I thought that any hereditary
peculiarities would almost of necessity vary in different races, and that
so fundamental and enduring a feature as the finger markings must in some
way be correlated with temperament.
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