Heredity in Man. 339 



evolution point of view, of our marriage system. The 

 more enduring the marriage bond, the more careful will 

 the contracting parties be to select wisely and well, look- 

 ing not merely to immediate satisfaction of natural im- 

 pulse, but to life-long association. But granting all this, 

 we must remember that marriage, as a practical fact, is 

 not always contracted on these grounds. There are many 

 disturbing causes which mar the good effects of the system. 

 Moreover, from the point of view of the community as 

 a whole, the question is : Who are excluded, by such 

 selection, from participating in the duties of parenthood ? 

 One has met so many charming and intellectual old maids 

 and confirmed bachelors, and though for obvious reasons 

 it must not be breathed aloud that one has met, still one 

 has at any rate heard of so many fathers and mothers who 

 are neither charming nor intellectual, that one questions 

 whether the average ability of married folk is much in 

 excess of that of those who die unmated. If so, sexual 

 selection does not have any marked effect on the mean 

 level of faculty in our community ; and this factor, like 

 that of emigration, may be left on one side. 



If then in the relative absence of natural selection 

 the mean efficiency of civilized man is not, from this 

 cause, undergoing progressive development, wherein lie 

 the possibilities of race progress ? The first and most 

 obvious answer is : By the hereditary transmission of 

 acquired increments of faculty. There are some who have 

 contended that if there be no inheritance of acquired 

 characters, the past history of our race is inexplicable, 

 and for the future there can be no hope. But when they 

 are pressed for definite and conclusive evidence of such 

 transmission it is not forthcoming in any measure pro- 

 portional to the confidence of their assertions. Nay, 

 more; the question may be raised whether the supposed 



