OF PUPPIES. 105 



that the early human and brute races must of necessity have 

 been produced from the nearest affinities, and it is unreason- 

 able to suppose that nature would have set out on a principle 

 tending- to the immediate deterioration of her works. This 

 has been called the mere argument of necessity, and is said 

 to apply only to the precise period when there was no other 

 connexion possible. I admit that this is an argument of 

 necessity, viewed with reference only to primitive times ; 

 but it stands otherwise, when w^e reflect that, for ages after, 

 consanguineous marriages were consummated among nations 

 of refinement, and, to this day, some savage tribes, particu- 

 larly their reigning families and chiefs, confine themselves to 

 marriage among lineal kindred *, and that in neither in- 

 stance has any degeneration been observed. From a parity 

 of reasoning, as we know that an insuperable bar has been 

 placed against propagation among the several genera, by an 

 instinctive aversion, that the specific forms might not be lost 

 in hybridous productions ; so it does not appear to be strain- 

 ing analogy too much to suppose that, had ill effects fol- 

 lowed from consang'uineous intercourse, something like this 

 instinctive aversion would be manifested here also t. Nei- 



* The Egyptians are said to have allowed of the marriages of brothers 

 to sisters. The Athenians admitted the betrothing of brothers and sisters 

 of the half blood, if related by the father's side. The marriage of Abra- 

 ham with his sister assures us that it was practised among the Chal- 

 deans ; and it may be remarked, that, when this island was conquered by 

 Caesar, a peculiar system of cohabitation prevailed. — Uxores habent 

 deni duodenique inter se communes, et maxime fratrcs cum fratribus, 

 parentesque cum liberis j sed si qui sunt ex his nati, eorum habentur li- 

 beri, quo primum virgo quaeque deducta est.— Paley's Nat. Phil. 



f It may be argued, that such aversion is manifested in the political 

 restrictions relative to consanguineous marriages among enlightened na- 

 tions. That such prohibitions were necessary from moral and political 

 necessity is evident ; for, by extending the social compact to marriages 

 without the family pale, knowledge and the arts were extended, improv- 

 ed, and became a common property ; wealth was diffused, communities 

 were enlarged, and social interests joined those who before were in op- 

 position to each other j and, above all, the demoralizing and depopu- 



H 



