294 Heredity. 



tion. This proposed selection has but rarely been attempted, and 

 never uninterruptedly. Instances of it might be found in mediaeval 

 times, in the golden age of the aristocracy. Often then, when an 

 alliance was about to be formed, there was required on both sides 

 not only well-authenticated noble descent, but also vigour, valour, 

 courage, loyalty, piety in short, all the chivalric virtues which it 

 was desired to transmit to the children. It can hardly be doubted 

 that if this selection were carried out methodically it would lead 

 to good results for the improvement of the human race. Of course 

 there would be many exceptions, many failures, many unforeseen 

 anomalies, produced by chance, or by reversional heredity ; the 

 phenomena of heredity are too complex and too delicate to be 

 produced with the mathematical regularity of a machine; but 

 it is probable that the general result would nevertheless be 

 excellent. 



Still, it may be objected that any such method as this would be 

 only half successful. Grant that in this way we could perpetuate 

 for the common good a nearly constant sum of eminent, illus- 

 trious, or merely notable men, or grant, even, that the number of 

 such could be increased, there would still remain a far larger 

 number of inferior minds of which heredity would perpetuate the 

 deficiencies, just as, ex hypothesi, it perpetuates the superior 

 qualities of the others. Must we dream that the case admits of no 

 remedy ? Must we admit that here the law of competition is in 

 force, and that it will in course of time stamp out whatever does 

 not rise to a certain level? May we hold that crosses judiciously 

 contrived between one class and another might raise up that which 

 is beneath, without lowering that which is above ? Would civiliza- 

 tion be the gainer? Or would such crosses only produce a 

 uniform level of mediocrity ? These questions may be debated, 

 but not resolved. 



Some writers hold that a physically and morally superior race, 

 when united with an inferior one, lowers itself without raising the 

 other, so that all such alliances would constitute a loss to civiliza- 

 tion. This opinion is enforced with a hardy logic by the author of 

 a voluminous work on the Inequality of Human Races ^ In his 



1 De Gobineau, Essai sur V Inegalite des Races Humaines, 4 vols. 8vo. 



