not prudential, is an ugly phrase not fully justified. It no doubt
includes death through inadequate food and shelter, through
pestilence from overcrowding, through war, and the like; but it also
includes many causes that do not deserve so hard a name. Population
decays under conditions that cannot be charged to the presence or
absence of misery, in the common sense of the word. These exist when
native races disappear before the presence of the incoming white man,
when after making the fullest allowances for imported disease, for
brandy drinking, and other assignable causes, there is always a
large residuum of effect not clearly accounted for. It is certainly
not wholly due to misery, but rather to listlessness, due to
discouragement, and acting adversely in many ways.
One notable result of dulness and apathy is to make a person
unattractive to the opposite sex and to be unattracted by them. It
is antagonistic to sexual affection, and the result is a diminution
of offspring. There exists strong evidence that the decay of
population in some parts of South America under the irksome tyranny
of the Jesuits, which crushed what little vivacity the people
possessed, was due to this very cause. One cannot fairly apply the
term "misery" to apathy; I should rather say that strong affections
restrained from marriage by prudential considerations more truly
deserved that name.
EARLY AND LATE MARRIAGES
It is important to obtain a just idea of the relative effects of
early and late marriages. I attempted this in _Hereditary Genius_,
but I think the following is a better estimate. We are unhappily
still deficient in collected data as regards the fertility of the
upper and middle classes at different ages; but the facts collected
by Dr. Matthews Duncan as regards the lower orders will serve our
purpose approximately, by furnishing the required _ratios_, though
not the absolute values. The following are his results,[17] from
returns kept at the Lying-in Hospital of St. Georges-in-the-East:--
Age of Mother
at her Marriage. Average Fertility.
15-19 9.12
20-24 7.92
25-29 6.30
30-34 4.60
The meaning of this Table will be more clearly grasped after a
little modification of its contents. We may consider the fertility
of each group to refer to the medium age of that group, as by writing
17 instead of 15-19, and we may slightly smooth the figures, then
we have--
Age of Mother at her Approximate average
Marriage. Fertility.
17 9.00 = 6 × 1.5
22 7.50 = 5 × 1.5
27 6.00 = 4 × 1.5
32 4.50 = 3 × 1.5
Which shows that the relative fertility of mothers married at the
ages of 17, 22, 27, and 32 respectively is as 6, 5, 4, and 3
approximately.
The increase in population by a habit of early marriages is further
augmented by the greater rapidity with which the generations follow
each other. By the joint effect of these two causes, a large effect
is in time produced.
Let us compute a single example. Taking a group of 100 mothers
married at the age of 20, whom we will designate as A, and another
group of 100 mothers married at the age of 29, whom we will call B,
we shall find by interpolation that the fertility of A and B
respectively would be about 8.2 and 5.4. We need not, however,
regard their absolute fertility, which would differ in different
classes of society, but will only consider their relative production
of such female children as may live and become mothers, and we will
suppose the number of such descendants in the first generation to be
the same as that of the A and B mothers together[17]--namely, 200.
Then the number of such children in the A and B classes respectively,
being in the proportion of 8.2 to 5.4, will be 115 and 85.
[Footnote 17: _Fecundity, Fertility, Sterility_, etc.,
by Dr. Matthews Duncan. A. & C. Black: Edinburgh, 1871, p. 143.]
We have next to determine the average lengths of the A and B
generations, which may be roughly done by basing it on the usual
estimate of an average generation, irrespectively of sex, at a third
of a century, or say of an average female generation at 31.5 years.
We will further take 20 years as being 4.5 years earlier than the
average time of marriage, and 29 years as 4.5 years later than it,
so that the length of each generation of the A group will be 27 years,
and that of the B group will be 36 years. All these suppositions
appear to be perfectly fair and reasonable, while it may easily be
shown that any other suppositions within the bounds of probability
would lead to results of the same general order.
The least common multiple of 27 and 36 is 108, at the end of which
term of years A will have been multiplied four times over by the
factor 1.5, and B three times over by the factor 0.85. The results
are given in the following Table:--
Number of Female Descendants who themselves
become Mothers.
======================================================================
After Number | A | B |
of Years | Of 100 Mothers whose | Of 100 Mothers whose |
as below. | Marriages and those of | Marriages and those of |
| their Daughters all take | their Daughters take |
| place at the Age of | place at the Age of |
| 20 Years. | 29 Years. |
| --- | ---- |
| (Ratio of Increase in | (Ratio of Decrease in |
| each successive | each successive Generation |
| Generation being 1.15.) | being 0.85.) |
-------------+--------------------------+----------------------------|
108 | 175 | 61 |
216 | 299 | 38 |
324 | 535 | 23 |
======================================================================
The general result is that the group B gradually disappears, and the
group A more than supplants it. Hence if the races best fitted to
occupy the land are encouraged to marry early, they will breed down
the others in a very few generations.
MARKS FOR FAMILY MERIT
It may seem very reasonable to ask how the result proposed in the
last paragraph is to be attained, and to add that the difficulty of
carrying so laudable a proposal into effect lies wholly in the
details, and therefore that until some working plan is suggested,
the consideration of improving the human race is Utopian. But this
requirement is not altogether fair, because if a persuasion of the
importance of any end takes possession of men's minds, sooner or
later means are found by which that end is carried into effect. Some
of the objections offered at first will be discovered to be
sentimental, and of no real importance--the sentiment will change
and they will disappear; others that are genuine are not met, but
are in some way turned or eluded; and lastly, through the ingenuity
of many minds directed for a long time towards the achievement of a
common purpose, many happy ideas are sure to be hit upon that would
not have occurred to a single individual.
* * * * *
This being premised, it will suffice to faintly sketch out some sort
of basis for eugenics, it being now an understanding that we are
provisionally agreed, for the sake of argument, that the improvement
of race is an object of first-class importance, and that the popular
feeling has been educated to regard it in that light.
The final object would be to devise means for favouring individuals
who bore the signs of membership of a superior race, the proximate
aim would be to ascertain what those signs were, and these we will
consider first.
The indications of superior breed are partly personal, partly
ancestral. We need not trouble ourselves about the personal part,
because full weight is already given to it in the competitive careers;
energy, brain, morale, and health being recognised factors of success,
while there can hardly be a better evidence of a person being
adapted to his circumstances than that afforded by success. It is
the ancestral part that is neglected, and which we have yet to
recognise at its just value. A question that now continually arises
is this: a youth is a candidate for permanent employment, his
present personal qualifications are known, but how will he turn out
in later years? The objections to competitive examinations are
notorious, in that they give undue prominence to youths whose
receptive faculties are quick, and whose intellects are precocious.
They give no indication of the directions in which the health,
character, and intellect of the youth will change through the
development, in their due course, of ancestral tendencies that are
latent in youth, but will manifest themselves in after life.
Examinations deal with the present, not with the future, although it
is in the future of the youth that we are especially interested.
Much of the needed guidance may be derived from his family history.
I cannot doubt, if two youths were of equal personal merit, of whom
one belonged to a thriving and long-lived family, and the other to a
decaying and short-lived family, that there could be any hesitation
in saying that the chances were greater of the first-mentioned youth
becoming the more valuable public servant of the two.
A thriving family may be sufficiently defined or inferred by the
successive occupations of its several male members in the previous
generation, and of the two grandfathers. These are patent facts
attainable by almost every youth, which admit of being verified in
his neighbourhood and attested in a satisfactory manner.
A healthy and long-lived family may be defined by the patent facts
of ages at death, and number and ages of living relatives, within
the degrees mentioned above, all of which can be verified and
attested. A knowledge of the existence of longevity in the family
would testify to the stamina of the candidate, and be an important
addition to the knowledge of his present health in forecasting the
probability of his performing a large measure of experienced work.
Owing to absence of data and the want of inquiry of the family
antecedents of those who fail and of those who succeed in life, we
are much more ignorant than we ought to be of their relative
importance. In connection with this, I may mention some curious
results published by Mr. F.M. Holland[18] of Boston, U.S., as to the
antecedent family history of persons who were reputed to be more
moral than the average, and of those who were the reverse. He has
been good enough to reply to questions that I sent to him concerning
his criterion of morality, and other points connected with the
statistics, in a way that seems satisfactory, and he has very
obligingly furnished me with additional MS. materials. One of his
conclusions was that morality is more often found among members of
large families than among those of small ones. It is reasonable to
expect this would be the case owing to the internal discipline among
members of large families, and to the wholesome sustaining and
restraining effects of family pride and family criticism. Members of
small families are apt to be selfish, and when the smallness of the
family is due to the deaths of many of its members at early ages, it
is some evidence either of weakness of the family constitution, or of
deficiency of common sense or of affection on the part of the
parents in not taking better care of them. Mr. Holland quotes in his
letter to me a piece of advice by Franklin to a young man in search
of a wife, "to take one out of a bunch of sisters," and a popular
saying that kittens brought up with others make the best pets,
because they have learned to play without scratching. Sir William
Gull[19] has remarked that those candidates for the Indian Civil
Service who are members of large families are on the whole the
strongest.
[Footnote 18: _Index Newspaper_, Boston, U.S. July 27, 1882.]
Far be it from me to say that any scheme of marks for family merit
would not require a great deal of preparatory consideration. Careful
statistical inquiries have yet to be made into the family
antecedents of public servants of mature age in connection with
their place in examination lists at the earlier age when they first
gained their appointments. This would be necessary in order to learn
the amount of marks that should be assigned to various degrees of
family merit. I foresee no peculiar difficulty in conducting such an
inquiry; indeed, now that competitive examinations have been in
general use for many years, the time seems ripe for it, but of
course its conduct would require much confidential inquiry and a
great deal of trouble in verifying returns. Still, it admits of
being done, and if the results, derived from different sources,
should confirm one another, they could be depended on.
[Footnote 19: _Blue Book C_--1446, 1876. On the Selection and
Training of Candidates for the Indian Civil Service.]
Let us now suppose that a way was seen for carrying some such idea
as this into practice, and that family merit, however defined, was
allowed to count, for however little, in competitive examinations.
The effect would be very great: it would show that ancestral
qualities are of present current value; it would give an impetus to
collecting family histories; it would open the eyes of every family
and or society at large to the importance of marriage alliance with
a good stock; it would introduce the subject of race into a
permanent topic of consideration, which (on the supposition of its
_bonâ fide_ importance that has been assumed for the sake of
argument) experience would show to be amply justified. Any act that
first gives a guinea stamp to the sterling guinea's worth of natural
nobility might set a great social avalanche in motion.
ENDOWMENTS.
Endowments and bequests have been freely and largely made for
various social purposes, and as a matter of history they have
frequently been made to portion girls in marriage. It so happens
that the very day that I am writing this, I notice an account in the
foreign newspapers (September 19, 1882) of an Italian who has
bequeathed a sum to the corporation of London to found small
portions for three poor girls to be selected by lot. And again, a
few weeks ago I read also in the French papers of a trial, in
reference to the money adjudged to the "Rosière" of a certain village.
Many cases in which individuals and states have portioned girls may
be found in Malthus. It is therefore far from improbable that if the
merits of good race became widely recognised and its indications
were rendered more surely intelligible than they now are, that local
endowments, and perhaps adoptions, might be made in favour of those
of both sexes who showed evidences of high race and of belonging to
prolific and thriving families. One cannot forecast their form,
though we may reckon with some assurance that in one way or another
they would be made, and that the better races would be given a
better chance of marrying early.
A curious relic of the custom which was universal three or four
centuries ago, of entrusting education to celibate priests, forbade
Fellows of Colleges to marry, under the penalty of losing their
fellowships. It is as though the winning horses at races were
rendered ineligible to become sires, which I need hardly say is the
exact reverse of the practice. Races were established and endowed by
"Queen's plates" and otherwise at vast expense, for the purpose of
discovering the swiftest horses, who are thenceforward exempted from
labour and reserved for the sole purpose of propagating their species.
The horses who do not win races, or who are not otherwise specially
selected for their natural gifts, are prevented from becoming sires.
Similarly, the mares who win races as fillies, are not allowed to
waste their strength in being ridden or driven, but are tended under
sanatory conditions for the sole purpose of bearing offspring. It is
better economy, in the long-run, to use the best mares as breeders
than as workers, the loss through their withdrawal from active
service being more than recouped in the next generation through what
is gained by their progeny.
The college statutes to which I referred were very recently relaxed
at Oxford, and have been just reformed at Cambridge. I am told that
numerous marriages have ensued in consequence, or are ensuing. In
_Hereditary Genius_ I showed that scholastic success runs strongly
in families; therefore, in all seriousness, I have no doubt, that
the number of Englishmen naturally endowed with high scholastic
faculties, will be sensibly increased in future generations by the
repeal of these ancient statutes.
The English race has yet to be explored and their now unknown wealth
of hereditary gifts recorded, that those who possess such a
patrimony should know of it. The natural impulses of mankind would
then be sufficient to ensure that such wealth should no more
continue to be neglected than the existence of any other possession
suddenly made known to a man. Aristocracies seldom make alliances
out of their order, except to gain wealth. Is it less to be expected
that those who become aware that they are endowed with the power of
transmitting valuable hereditary gifts should abstain from
squandering their future children's patrimony by marrying persons of
lower natural stamp? The social consideration that would attach
itself to high races would, it may be hoped, partly neutralise a
social cause that is now very adverse to the early marriages of the
most gifted, namely, the cost of living in cultured and refined
society. A young man with a career before him commonly feels it
would be an act of folly to hamper himself by too early a marriage.
The doors of society that are freely open to a bachelor are closed
to a married couple with small means, unless they bear patent
recommendations such as the public recognition of a natural nobility
would give. The attitude of mind that I should expect to predominate
among those who had undeniable claims to rank as members of an
exceptionally gifted race, would be akin to that of the modern
possessors of ancestral property or hereditary rank. Such persons
feel it a point of honour not to alienate the old place or make
misalliances, and they are respected for their honest family pride.
So a man of good race would shrink from spoiling it by a lower
marriage, and every one would sympathise with his sentiments.
CONCLUSION.
It remains to sketch in outline the principal conclusions to which
we seem to be driven by the results of the various inquiries
contained in this volume, and by what we know on allied topics from
the works of others.
We cannot but recognise the vast variety of natural faculty, useful
and harmful, in members of the same race, and much more in the human
family at large, all of which tend to be transmitted by inheritance.
Neither can we fail to observe that the faculties of men generally,
are unequal to the requirements of a high and growing civilisation.
This is principally owing to their entire ancestry having lived up
to recent times under very uncivilised conditions, and to the
somewhat capricious distribution in late times of inherited wealth,
which affords various degrees of immunity from the usual selective
agencies.
In solution of the question whether a continual improvement in
education might not compensate for a stationary or even retrograde
condition of natural gifts, I made inquiry into the life history of
twins, which resulted in proving the vastly preponderating effects
of nature over nurture.
The fact that the very foundation and outcome of the human mind is
dependent on race, and that the qualities of races vary, and
therefore that humanity taken as a whole is not fixed but variable,
compels us to reconsider what may be the true place and function of
man in the order of the world. I have examined this question freely
from many points of view, because whatever may be the vehemence with
which particular opinions are insisted upon, its solution is
unquestionably doubtful. There is a wide and growing conviction
among truth-seeking, earnest, humble-minded, and thoughtful men,
both in this country and abroad, that our cosmic relations are by no
means so clear and simple as they are popularly supposed to be,
while the worthy and intelligent teachers of various creeds, who
have strong persuasions on the character of those relations, do not
concur in their several views.
The results of the inquiries I have made into certain alleged forms
of our relations with the unseen world do not, so far as they go,
confirm the common doctrines. One, for example, on the objective
efficacy of prayer[20] was decidedly negative. It showed that while
contradicting the commonly expressed doctrine, it concurred with the
almost universal practical opinion of the present day. Another
inquiry into visions showed that, however ill explained they may
still be, they belong for the most part, if not altogether, to an
order of phenomena which no one dreams in other cases of calling
supernatural. Many investigations concur in showing the vast
multiplicity of mental operations that are in simultaneous action,
of which only a minute part falls within the ken of consciousness,
and suggest that much of what passes for supernatural is due to one
portion of our mind being contemplated by another portion of it, as
if it had been that of another person. The term "individuality" is
in fact a most misleading word.
[Footnote 20: Not reprinted in this edition.]
I do not for a moment wish to imply that the few inquiries published
in this volume exhaust the list of those that might be made, for I
distinctly hold the contrary, but I refer to them in corroboration
of the previous assertion that our relations with the unseen world
are different to those we are commonly taught to believe.
In our doubt as to the character of our mysterious relations with
the unseen ocean of actual and potential life by which we are
surrounded, the generally accepted fact of the solidarity of the
universe--that is, of the intimate connections between distant parts
that bind it together as a whole--justifies us, I think, in looking
upon ourselves as members of a vast system which in one of its
aspects resembles a cosmic republic.
On the one hand, we know that evolution has proceeded during an
enormous time on this earth, under, so far as we can gather, a
system of rigorous causation, with no economy of time or of
instruments, and with no show of special ruth for those who may in
pure ignorance have violated the conditions of life.
On the other hand, while recognising the awful mystery of conscious
existence and the inscrutable background of evolution, we find that
as the foremost outcome of many and long birth-throes, intelligent
and kindly man finds himself in being. He knows how petty he is, but
he also perceives that he stands here on this particular earth, at
this particular time, as the heir of untold ages and in the van of
circumstance. He ought therefore, I think, to be less diffident than
he is usually instructed to be, and to rise to the conception that
he has a considerable function to perform in the order of events,
and that his exertions are needed. It seems to me that he should
look upon himself more as a freeman, with power of shaping the
course of future humanity, and that he should look upon himself less
as the subject of a despotic government, in which case it would be
his chief merit to depend wholly upon what had been regulated for him,
and to render abject obedience.
The question then arises as to the way in which man can assist in
the order of events. I reply, by furthering the course of evolution.
He may use his intelligence to discover and expedite the changes
that are necessary to adapt circumstance to race and race to
circumstance, and his kindly sympathy will urge him to effect them
mercifully.