MENTAL AND MORAL HEREDITY IN ROYALTY. 263 



There are thirty-five persons in this list, of whom fifteen were either 

 cruel or dissolute or hoth. These have the mark f against them. 

 There are at least seven either insane or showing the neurosis in a 

 marked degree. These have the mark * applied to them. This 

 leaves only thirteen free. Of these, four are known to have been 

 indolent almost to point of disease. Thus, only about nine in the 

 thirty-five were normal. This is a remarkably small ratio of normal 

 and is less than found in any other country. 



It will be shown that selection of the worst in each generation 

 will account for it without other causes being necessarily introduced. 

 We get some idea here of the extent to which a degeneration can be 

 carried, and it is worthy of note that it may be perpetuated for a 

 great number of generations, even when breeding in. There is no 

 evidence that the in-breeding has led to sterility, as is usually con- 

 tended by historians and students of the subject. Although the male 

 line by way of the oldest sons ceased once at Charles IL, and again 

 at Ferdinand VII., nearly every marriage was prolific of many chil- 

 dren, even among the closest blood relations, and one has but to 

 glance at the 'Almanach de Gotha' for the current year to see the 

 number of descendants that are being born to the closely inter-related 

 families of Hapsburg, Bourbon and Orleans. 



Summary of Modern Spain. 



The occurrence just where they fall of every one of these modern 

 Spanish Bourbons is compatible with the theory of mental and moral 

 inheritance. There is no greatness springing up where we least expect 

 it; there is no viciousness and imbecility that might not be explained 

 from heredity alone. There is nothing that need be more than pure 

 selection and repetition. 



Of course we expect from Galton's law that, on the average, the 

 descendants will show less of any peculiarity than the parents, and 

 here we shall show that averaging all the descendants it is so, but all 

 descendants would include other countries. Portugal, Austria, Italy, 

 France, and including all these it will be shown in a later summary 

 that there is a bettering of affairs from the time of Philip V. onward, 

 but one must notice the artificial selection that took place in Spain. 

 It was as if they were breeding mental monstrosities for a bench show. 

 We see no diminution in either the debauchery or tyranny. The 

 insanity does appear less at the bottom of the chart, but it will also 

 be noticed that the early degenerates, Ferdinand VI. and Philip, son 

 of Charles III., who were avowedly insane, had no children and the 

 worst was consequently eliminated, while the worst moral depravity 

 and laziness were not only perpetuated, but usually drawn from and 

 in a double or triple way. This view of selection alone is important, 



