THE RACIAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE. 23 



normal families are born later in life that would not be of great 

 moment in itself it means far more than this. The majority of 

 children are more often born in the earlier half of married life, 

 before the age of thirty-five. Hence a postponement of matri- 

 mony means not only later children but fewer children. Herein 

 lies the great significance of the phenomenon for us. Standing 

 armies tend in this respect to overload succeeding generations 

 with inferior types of men. This selection is, in operation, akin 

 to the influence which Galton has invoked as a partial explana- 

 tion for the mental darkness of the middle ages. This he ascribes 

 to the beliefs and customs by which all the finer minds and spirits 

 were withdrawn from the field of matrimony by the Church, 

 leaving the entire future population to the loins of the physically 

 robust and adventurous portion of the community. Mind spent 

 itself in a single generation of search for knowledge ; physique, 

 bereft of intellect, was left to its own devices among the common 

 people. 



The intensity of this military selection, potent enough in time 

 of peace, is of course highly augmented during the prosecution 

 of a war. At such periods the normal men are not only isolated 

 for an indefinite period ; their ranks are permanently decimated 

 by the mortality at the front. The selective influence is doubly 

 operative. Fortunately, we possess data which appear to afford 

 illustration of its effects. Detailed investigation in various parts 

 of France is bringing to light certain curious after-effects of the 

 late Franco- Prussian War. We do not always fully realize what 

 such an event means for a nation, quite irrespective of the actual 

 mortality, and of the direct economic expenditure. Every family 

 in the land is affected by it ; and the future bears its full share 

 with the contemporaneous population. In France, for example, 

 during the year of the war, there were seventy-five thousand fewer 

 marriages than usual. In 1871, upon its conclusion, an unprece- 

 dented epidemic of them broke out, not equaled in absolute 

 numbers since the veterans returned from the front in 1813, on 

 the cessation of hostilities at that time. 



Two tendencies have been noted, from the comparison of the 

 generations of offspring severally conceived before, during, and 

 after the war. This appeared in the conscripts who came before 

 the recruiting commissions in 1890-'92, at which time the chil- 

 dren conceived in war times became, at the age of twenty, liable 

 for service. In the population during the progress of the war 

 the flower of French manhood, then in the field, was without pro- 

 portionate representation. There must have been an undue pre- 

 ponderance, not only of stunted men, rejected from the army for 

 deficiency of stature alone, but of those otherwise physically un- 

 fitted for service. Hence, the population born of this time ought, 



