162 THE DESCENT OF MAN. [Part L 



becile, the maimed, and the sick ; we institute poor-laws ; 

 and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the 

 life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to 

 believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who 

 from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed 

 to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized socie- 

 ties propagate their kind. No one who has attended to 

 the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this 

 must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is sur- 

 prising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, 

 leads to the degeneration of a domestic race ; but except- 

 ing in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so igno- 

 rant as to allow his worst animals to breed. 



The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless 

 is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, 

 which was originally acquired as part of the social in- 

 stincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner pre- 

 viously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. 

 Nor could we check our sympathy, if so urged by hard 

 reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our 

 nature. The surgeon may harden himself while perform- 

 ing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the 

 good of his patient ; but if we were intentionally to neg- 

 lect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a con- 

 tingent benefit, with a certain and great present evil. 

 Hence we must bear without complaining the undoubtedly 

 bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their 

 kind ; but there appears to be at least one check in steady 

 action, namely the weaker and inferior members of society 

 not marrying so freely as the sound ; and this check might 

 be indefinitely increased, though this is more to be hoped 

 for than expected, by the weak in body or mind refraining 

 from marriage. 



In all civilized countries man accumulates property 

 and bequeaths it to his children. So that the children in 



