THE KINSHIP OF MAN.
L.To THE EDITOR OW THE " SPECTATOR."] Sin,—I have not seen Mr. H. Kendall's " Kinship of Man " (Spectator, p. 1,565), but it seems founded on mere fallacy, and should surely be treated accordingly. It assumes, I suppose, that every one has two parents, four grandparents, eight great- grandparents,—an assumption not necessarily true beyond the grandparents. The child of first-cousins has but seven great- grandparents, one of them counting twice. Go back far enough, the counting will be not twice, but twenty times, and many times more.
On an uninhabited isle in the Pacific, settle Smith and Brown, each with his wife. On another, in like manner, Jones and Robinson. After multiplied generations, the former isle may still be Smith-Brown exclusively ; and the latter, with no less purity, Jones-Robinson. And instead of isles, such separation may be secured by separate races or classes. It is mere fallacy to suppose that every man (or most men) now living in England must be descended from every man (or most men) living here at the time of the Conquest. There is suggestion of truth, if not truth itself, in the couplet which tells us :—
" Of those whose ancient and ignoble blood Has crept through scoundrels ever since the Flood."
—I am, Sir, &c.,
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