Record of Family Faculties. than we have at present any idea of. The occasional anomaly of healthy children being born of unhealthy parents, and of weakly children being born of robust parents, admits of no other explanation. Our present ignorance of the conditions by which the level of humanity may be raised is so gross, that I believe if we had some dictator of the Spartan type, who exercised absolute power over marriages, assigning A to be the wife of B, and C to be the wife of D, and who acted with the best intentions, he might possible do even more harm than good to the race. The following diagram show in a compact form the direct ancestors with whom any group of brothers and sisters are most nearly connected, the group in question being described in the diagram by the word "Children." Besides the direct ancestors, the brothers and sisters of each of them have also to be taken into account, for the reasons already given:-- [set sideways]1. Children [long bracket encompassing]3. Mother 2. Father [shorter bracket coming from "Mother" encompassing]7. 6. [shorter bracket coming from "Father" encompassing] 5. 4. [set horizontally]4. Father's Father [even shorter bracket encompassing]8. Father's Father's Father. 9. Father's Father's Mother. 5. Father's Mother[even shorter bracket encompassing]10. Father's Mother's Father. 11. Father's Mother's Mother. 6. Mother's Father[even shorter bracket encompassing]12. Mother's Father's Father. 13. Mother's Father's Mother. 7. Mother's Mother[even shorter bracket encompassing]14. Mother's Mother's Father. 15. Mother's Mother's Mother. When preparing to fill the Tables, the writer should first determine his own position in the pedigree. 1. Suppose the writer to be male, and that he is the father of a young family; -- then his own place will be "Father," and that of his wife will be "Mother;" the "Father's Father's Father" will be his own Father's Father, and so on. 2. Suppose he is unmarried:-- then he may class himself as one of the "Children;" in which case the "Father's Father's Father," will be his own Great-grandparent. Otherwise, if he has a married brother or sister who have children, he may regard his brother as the "Father," or his sister as the "Mother," and his own place will be that of a "Father's Brother," or of a "Mother's Brother," as the case may be. 3 [end]