174 THE DESCENT OF MAN. Paet I. 



namely, the fact that the very poor and reckless, who 

 are often degraded by vice, almost id variably marry 

 early, whilst the careful and frugal, who are generally 

 otherwise virtuous, marry late in life, so that they may 

 be able to support themselves and their children in 

 comfort. Those who marry early produce within a 

 given period not only a greater number of generations, 

 but, as shewn by Dr. Duncan, 19 they produce many more 

 children. The children, moreover, that are born by 

 mothers during the prime of life are heavier and larger, 

 and therefore probably more vigorous, than those born 

 at other periods. Thus the reckless, degraded, and 

 often vicious members of society, tend to increase at a 

 quicker rate than the provident and generally virtuous 

 members. Or as Mr. Greg puts the case : " The care- 

 " less, squalid, unaspiring Irishman multiplies like 

 " rabbits : the frugal, foreseeing, self-respecting, am- 

 " bitious Scot, stern in his morality, spiritual in his 

 " faith, sagacious and disciplined in his intelligence, 

 " passes his best years in struggle and in celibacy, 

 " marries late, and leaves few behind him. Given a 

 " land originally peopled by a thousand Saxons and a 

 " thousand Celts — and in a dozen generations five-sixths 

 " of the population would be Celts, but five-sixths of 

 "the property, of the power, of the intellect, would 

 " belong to the one-sixth of Saxons that remained. 

 " In the eternal ' struggle for existence,' it would be 

 " the inferior and less favoured race that had prevailed 

 " — and prevailed by virtue not of its good qualities 

 " but of its faults." 



There are, however, some checks to this downward 

 tendency. We have seen that the intemperate suffer 



19 "On the Laws of the Fertility of Women," in * Transact. Eoyal 

 Soc.' Edinburgh, vol. xxiv. p. 287. See, also, Mr. Galton, ' Hereditary 

 Genius,' p. 352-357, for observations to the above effect. 



