of hers appeared in print in 1789 I find from an article entitled “Mother‐ wit,” in the _Blätter für litterarische Unterhaltung_ of 4th October 1841, published by Brockhaus, which gives a long list of clever mothers of distinguished men, from which I shall only take two: “Bacon’s mother was a distinguished linguist, wrote and translated several works, and in all of them showed learning, acuteness, and taste. Boerhave’s mother distinguished herself through medical knowledge.” On the other hand, Haller has preserved for us a strong proof of the inheritance of the mental weakness of the mother, for he says: “_E duabus patriciis sororibus, ob divitias maritos nactis, quum tamen fatuis essent proximæ, novimus in nobilissimas gentes nunc a seculo retro ejus morbi manasse semina, ut etiam in quarta generatione, quintave, omnium posterorum aliqui fatui supersint_” (_Elementa physiol._, Lib. xxix. § 8). Also, according to Esquirol, madness is more frequently inherited from the mother than the father. If, however, it is inherited from the father, I attribute this to the disposition of the character whose influence occasions it. It seems to follow from our principle that sons of the same mother have equal mental capacity, and if one should be highly gifted the other must be so also. Sometimes it is so. Examples of this are the Carracci, Joseph and Michael Haydn, Bernard and Andreas Romberg, George and Frederic Cuvier. I would also add the brothers Schlegel, if it were not that the younger, Friedrich, made himself unworthy of the honour of being named along with his excellent, blameless, and highly distinguished brother, August Wilhelm, by the disgraceful obscurantism which in the last quarter of his life he pursued along with Adam Müller. For obscurantism is a sin, possibly not against the Holy Spirit, but yet against the human spirit, which one ought therefore never to forgive, but always and everywhere implacably to remember against whoever has been guilty of it, and take every opportunity of showing contempt for him so long as he lives, nay, after he is dead. But just as often the above result does not take place; for example, Kant’s brother was quite an ordinary man. To explain this I must remind the reader of what is said in the thirty‐first chapter on the physiological conditions of genius. Not only an extraordinarily developed and absolutely correctly formed brain (the share of the mother) is required, but also a very energetic action of the heart to animate it, _i.e._, subjectively a passionate will, a lively temperament: this is the inheritance from the father. But this quality is at its height only during the father’s strongest years; and the mother ages still more quickly. Accordingly the highly gifted sons will, as a rule, be the eldest, begotten in the full strength of both parents; thus Kant’s brother was eleven years younger than him. Even in the case of two distinguished brothers, as a rule, the elder will be the superior.