6 MARRIAGE AND DISEASE. 



and wives, and will refuse to be guided in any degree 

 by the teaching of the physiologist ; but this, which, 

 even if true, is no argument against teaching the truth, 

 I decline to believe, for the simple reason that I have 

 known good and honourable men and women who, 

 aware of some grave hereditary tendency to disease 

 within themselves, have voluntarily abjured marriage 

 and let their grievous legacy die with them. The 

 case is not, therefore, without hope, and I cannot but 

 believe that there are many thinking men and women 

 who, if they only understood what a terrible heritage 

 their children must take with their breath of life, 

 would cheerfully accept the inevitable, and, renouncing 

 all the pleasures and pride of the matrimonial state 

 and paternity, let their miserable estate lapse at their 

 death for want of an heir. 



I do not believe in the generally accepted cry that 

 men and women are blindly led by their instincts in 

 these matters. The matches made every day disprove 

 it. Love is not, after all, so overpowering a passion 

 that it cannot be guided by reason, nor is Cupid so 

 blind as he is painted. For rank or wealth a man 

 will woo, a woman give her heart, or at least her 

 hand ; and this being so, surely where the reward 

 is so infinitely greater, where the whole future of the 

 coming generation is at stake, rational people will not 

 permit their passions to run riot and overbear their 

 reason. 



But besides these extreme cases in which the 

 hereditary taint, the predisposition to disease, is so 



