CONSANGUINITY 135 



London as in St. Kilda, would lead to frightful evils. 

 We are therefore driven to conclude that the great 

 lawgivers of mankind have been wise to discourage 

 the marriage of near kin, and that it might be well 

 even to place first cousins within the forbidden de- 

 grees of relationship. 



We are speaking from the point of view of morbid 

 heredity alone. What effect in-and-in breeding would 

 have in developing superior qualities of body or mind 

 it is impossible to state, for the simple reason that the 

 experiment has never been made. Such an experi- 

 ment of course would have to be continued over many 

 generations before its results could be clearly ascer- 

 tained ; but an intensification of the good as well as 

 of the bad qualities of parents of the same blood might 

 confidently be looked for in the offspring. Thus two 

 first cousins of strong musical talents marrying 

 would be likely to produce children having an excep- 

 tional capacity for music. The numerous family of 

 the Bachs, as organists or music teachers freely inter- 

 married, and were very prolific in musical talent, 

 which may depend in part upon the structure of the 

 ear and of the fingers, as a painter's perception of 

 colour does upon the apparatus of the eye. But as 

 the morbid germ is always present in our constitu- 



