364 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



ologists deem consanguineous unions to result as badly as they often 

 do from the parents inheriting from their one common stock similar 

 weaknesses which unite in their children to form a lower deep of organ- 

 ic deficiency. With very good constitutions, men have been known to 

 marry their sisters with impunity, as some of the Ptolemies did ; but, 

 when the stock of the Egyptian monarchs declined in soundness, their 

 close intermarriages resulted in a rapid and frightful degeneracv. 



"Where there is no blood relationship between parents, they some- 

 times produce booby children, from having a too close temperamental 

 similarity. The most trustworthy authorities on this subject say that 

 in marriage a moderate difference between the constitutions and char- 

 acters of the parties, and complementary rather than antagonistic, is 

 best. A. noteworthy consideration in selecting a wife is, that as a 

 mother has much more influence on a child's character than a father, if 

 she has any marked bad trait, as a violent temper, laziness, or vanit}', 

 and if that trait be transmitted to her offspring, then the child will be 

 brought up by a woman the least fit of her sex to recognize the child's 

 faults, and eradicate them as far as possible by proper training. In the 

 rearing of young children, close associations have great influence. A 

 professor of McGill University assures me that the infants of his family 

 acquire a resemblance to their nurse in expression, which only disap- 

 pears when they are removed from her. 



A happy and hopeful marriage may be marred in its results from 

 procreation taking place while sickness, anxiety, or grief, has lowered 

 vitality ; and the too frequent bearing of children is very seriously det- 

 rimental to both mother and progeny. 



W^hen a parent transmits a malady, carefulness in living can fre- 

 quently prevent its development ; but when disease or predisposition to 

 it is acquired from a parent together with the carelessness or self- 

 indulgence of character which originally induced the disease, then the 

 taint of blood is confirmed and increased. Many perso«s of w-eak frame 

 prolong life to old age by prudence and abstemiousness, whereas the 

 conscious possession of a vigorous constitution is a constant tempta- 

 tion to abuses of it. Length of days depends less upon the quantity of 

 vital energy received at birth, than on the jealous care of health and 

 strength. 



In these matters, as in all others, we not only need to know much, 

 but to know it so long that we shall act upon our knowledge. The 

 discrepancy between the intellectual acceptance of truth and moral 

 obedience to it is wide as the gap between Ideal and Real. 



