SECRETARY'S REPORT. 107 



to prevent wholly the evil thus sought to be avoided. It would be 

 better far, if such a degree of physiological knowledge existed and 

 such caution was exercised among the community generally, as 

 would prevent the contraction of any marriages, where, from the 

 structure and endowments of the parties, debility, deformity, in- 

 sanity or idiocy must inevitably be the portion of their offspring 

 whether they be any more nearly related than through their com- 

 mon ancestor, Noah, or not. 



If we adopt Mr. Walker's views, it is easy to see how parents 

 of near affinities may produce offspring perfect and healthy, or the 

 reverse. He holds that to secure satisfactory results from any 

 union, there should be some inherent, constitutional, or funda- 

 mental difference ; some such difference as we often see in the 

 human family to be the ground of preference and attachment ; as 

 men generallj' prefer women of a feminine rather than a mascu- 

 line type. All desire, in a mate, properties and qralities not pos- 

 sessed by themselves. Now assuming as Mr. Walker holds, that 

 organization is transmitted by halves, and that, in animals of the 

 same variety, either parent may give either series of organs, we can 

 see in the case of brother and sister that if one receives the loco- 

 motive system of the father and the nutritive system of the mother, 

 and the other the locomotive system of the mother and the nutri- 

 tive system of the father, they are essentially unlike, there is 

 scarcely any similarity between them, although, as we say, of pre- 

 cisely the same blood; and their progeny if coupled might show no 

 deterioration ; whereas, if both have the same series of organs from 

 the same parents, they would be essentially the same, a sort of 

 quasi identity would exist between them, and they are vitterly unfit 

 to be mated. There might be impotency, or barrenness, or the 

 progeny, if any, would be decidedly inferior to the parents ; and 

 the same applies, more or less, to other relatives descended from a 

 common ancestry, but more distant than brother and sister. Mr. 

 Walker also holds that where the parents are not only of the same 

 variety but of the same family in the narrowest sense, the female 

 always gives the locomotive system and the father the nutritive ; 

 in which case the progeny is necessarily inferior to the parents. 



A careful consideration of the subject brings us to the following 

 conclusions, viz : 



That in general practice, with the grades and mixed animals 

 common in the country, close breeding should he scrupulously avoided 

 as highly detrimental. It is better always to avoid breeding from 



