106 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



sisters. The progeny inheriting full health, strength and develop- 

 ment, the herd continues in full power and vigor,* and does not 

 degenerate as often happens when man assumes to make the selec- 

 tions, and chooses according to fancy or convenience. The con- 

 tinuance of health, strength and perfect physical development is 

 believed to depend on the wisdom of the selection, upon the presence 

 of the desirable hereditary qualities, and the absence of injurious ones, 

 and not upon relationship whether near or remote. 



It has fallen within the observation of most persons that in the 

 human race frequent intermarriages in the same family for success- 

 ive generations often tend to degeneracy of both mind and body ; 

 size and vigor diminishing, and constitutional defects and diseases 

 being perpetuated and aggravated ; but neither in this case is the 

 result believed to be a necessary and inevitable consequence. Else 

 how could it be, that Infinite Wisdom, whose operations are ever 

 in accordance with the laws of his own institution, in originating a 

 "peculiar people," chosen to be the depositories of intellectual and 

 physical power, wealth and influence, and who, in spite of oppres- 

 sion without parallel in the world's history, have ever maintained 

 the possession of a goodly share of all these, — would have allowed 

 their first progenitor, Abraham, to marry his near kinswoman 

 Sarah, a half sister, niece or cousin, and Isaac their son to wed his 

 first cousin Rebecca, and Jacob who sprang from that union, to 

 marry first cousins, and their offspring for long generations to inter-^ 

 marry within their own people and tribes alone ? 



At a later period, marriages within certain degrees of consan- 

 guinity were forbidden by Divine authority, but not until the pe- 

 culiar race was fully established, and so far multiphed, as to allow 

 departure from close breeding without change of characteristics, 

 and not improbably the prohibition was even then based more upon 

 moral reasons, or upon man's ignorance or recklessness regarding 

 selection, than upon physical laws. 



Such laws exist among us at present, and it is well they do, inas- 

 much as for the reasons already given there is greater probability 

 of degeneracy by means of such connections tlian among those not 

 so related by blood. But it is impossible for any legal enactments 



*It may be siii'l with trntli, tlmt the average health and vigoi* of a wild herd is 

 much higher than it would be it' the feebler portion of the young were reared, as in 

 a state of domestication, instead of being destroyed by the stronger, or perishing 

 from hardshi]); but if close lircoding Vie, alone and necessarily, injurious, the whole 

 herd should gradually fail, which is not found io be the case. 



