BEAUTY AND THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES 175 



that the mothers undergo. Moreover, we are hardly- 

 justified in assuming that illegitimate children are 

 necessarily the offspring of love unions to a greater 

 extent than others ; they result in the main from hap- 

 hazard connexions lightly entered into. Alphonse 

 de Candolle remarks that, " generally speaking, the 

 role played by bastards in the princely families of 

 Europe is remarkable when one considers their small 

 number,"^ but history certainly does not furnish 

 convincing evidence of the superiority of bastards, 

 although Shakespeare appears to lend some counte- 

 nance to that view.2 As regards the question of 

 sympathy, irrespective of marriage, Burdach says: 

 "When parents have an aversion for each other, 

 their offspring is inferior ; their children are not so 

 intelligent or so apt " {leurs enfants sont moins vifs 

 et moins dispos). To this opinion Lucas subscribes,^ 

 remarking that forced unions tend to be less produc- 

 tive than voluntary ones. Sympathetic preferences 

 and aversions are known to exist among the lower 

 animals. Darwin gives some examples of these,* 



^ CandoUe's Eistoire des Sciences et des Savants. 

 2 King Lear, Act I. Scene ii. 



' Lucas's Traiti Philosophiqiie et Fhysiologiqm de VHiriditi 

 Naturelle. 

 * Darwin's Descent of Man. 



