270 MARRIAGE AND DISEASE. 



in the family, there is no physiological reason why such 

 marriages should not take place. Breeders of prize 

 stock frequently breed " in and in," not only with 

 impunity, but with marked benefit. But this fact, 

 while going to prove that it is not the mere blood 

 relationship of the parents which induces the de- 

 generate conditions so often found in the children of 

 consanguineous marriages, can but rarely be advanced 

 as an argument in support of the marriage of blood 

 relations. The stock-raiser only permits the more 

 perfect members of his flocks and herds to continue 

 their kind, and for this reason the " in and in " 

 breeding is innocuous, just as it would be in the 

 human family under like conditions. But where 

 shall we find the perfect human family ? At the 

 present time such families are certainly rare. The 

 laws of natural life have been so strained and per- 

 verted by our civilisation, that almost every family 

 nowadays has got a taint or twist of some kind, and 

 as all such imperfections are transmitted and rapidly 

 deepened and fixed in the family by the intermarriage 

 of its members, it is best that such unions should in 

 all cases be forbidden. 



As we have already seen, recently acquired char- 

 acters, whether physiological or pathological, are very 

 liable to disappear when the individual bearing such 

 character intermarries with another not having the 

 same character. The natural tendency in all such 

 cases is to revert in the offspring to the normal or 

 healthy type, so that, unless the new character be 



