p. 621 | BOOK NOTICES

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 6, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 39.

BOOK NOTICES

"THE KALLIKAK FAMILY," by Henry Herbert Goddard, Ph. D. New York, the Macmillan Company. 121 pages octavo. Price $1.50.

This volume presents, in popular form, a study of the inheritance of mental traits, on the line of study made some years ago in connection with the famous Jukes family.

Jukes, as those who are familiar with the investigation know, was a degenerate whose posterity was traced through a number of generations, and the large number of criminals, degenerates, and general undesirables listed. The family of Jonathan Edwards was traced as forming a striking contrast with that case.

In the Kallikak family, two lines of posterity are traced from the same father. One line came from an illegitimate offspring of this senior Kall-kak—name fictitious—and a simple-minded girl; while the other line of posterity comes through the legitimate line of his lawful union with a high-minded and intelligent woman.

As well as showing the influence of heredity, which is the main design of the book, it shows incidentally but strikingly the effects of alcohol and of the lack of proper training.