310 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Darwin, we shall have come to a better comprehension of biological 

 principles, of the laws of reproduction and heredity, for example, we 

 shall no longer hear ignorant legislators repelling with scorn a plan for 

 ascertaining whether or not consanguineous marriages are injurious to 

 the species. According to Darwin, persons of both sexes should be pro- 

 hibited from marrying when they are found to be in too marked a de- 

 gree inferior in body or mind. The same rule would apply to those who 

 will not be able to save their children from abject poverty ; for poverty 

 is not only a great evil in itself, it also tends to grow by promoting in- 

 difference in marriage. M. Ribot expresses the just hope that custom 

 will eventually take account of the data of science in this grave ques- 

 tion, but he also contemplates the ultimate intervention of the law. 

 This is, in our view, a dangerous means. In aspiring to favor well-as- 

 sorted marriages in a physical respect, the law would, in the first place, 

 favor licentiousness and the birth of illegitimate children. Now, licen- 

 tiousness and the temporary union of the sexes unaccompanied by 

 forethought and determined responsibilities, would encumber society 

 with good-for-nothings to a much greater extent than the marriage of 

 weakly beings. In the second place, the intervention of the law might 

 impose hindrances, to a much greater extent than that of parents, 

 to morally and intellectually well-assorted marriages as well as to con- 

 genial ones. Finally, governments are still less infallible than parents 

 in the matter of making a decision concerning the future of children. 

 All that could be done would be to exact from those wishing to marry 

 some assurance that they have the means of living, and will be able to 

 take care of their children. It would still be necessary, we repeat, to 

 prevent such a policy operating, as it does in Germany, as a promoter 

 of illegitimate births. This question is not, however, in reality, within 

 the province of philanthropy properly so called, with which we are 

 particularly occupied. Philanthropy can be charged here only with 

 the assistance which it gives the feeble-bodied for the prolongation of 

 their existence, and for the means it affords them for bringing into the 

 world still feebler children. The Darwinians exaggerate the harm 

 caused by philanthropy in this respect ; for they forget that it can 

 not wholly transform nature. Its power is limited to prolonging the 

 life of an individual (which is no great harm), or to prolonging his 

 race for a time that is more or less brief. One of two things must be 

 the case : either the evil relieved by philanthropy is a fatal germ of 

 decay and death for the posterity of the assisted man, in which event 

 the benevolence will only delay without preventing the inevitable ex- 

 tinction of that posterity ; or, on the contrary, the evil is reparable 

 and posterity may recruit, strengthen, and perfect itself that is, may 

 cross over the mountain instead of falling back upon it. Must we in 

 the latter case reproach Philanthropy for having held out the hand 

 of relief to those who were about to fall for ever? This dilemma can 

 be resolved only in each particular instance as it occurs ; what right 



