[34] Yet there is no doubt that lasting and passionate love may exist
between two persons thus nearly related. The danger to the health of the
offspring from occasional in-breeding of the kind appears to arise
chiefly from the accentuation of infirmities common to the two parents.
In a state of society free from the diseases of the civilisation-period,
such a danger would be greatly reduced.
[35] Modern writers fixing their regard on the physical side of this
love (necessary no doubt here, as elsewhere, to define and corroborate
the spiritual) have entered their protest as against the mere obscenity
into which the thing fell--for instance in the days of Martial--but have
missed the profound significance of the heroic attachment itself. It is,
however, with the ideals that we are just now concerned and not with
their disintegration.
[36] In the _later_ Egyptian centuries vivisection apparently became an
approved practice.
[37] The derivation of the word "wicked" seems uncertain. May it be
suggested that it is connected with "wick" or "quick," meaning _alive_?
[38] For further on the same subject see the last chapter, _infra_, on
"The New Morality."