GENERATION. 



473 



superior qualities. Bad qualities may become 

 as fixed as good ones, and a judicious selection 

 of the good ones (as adapted for his purpose) 

 ought to be his first and principal object.* 



A belief exists \vith some, founded, it is 

 said, both on common observation and scien- 

 tific research, that frequent breeding in the 

 same family, or what is commonly called 

 breeding in and in, has the effect of deterior- 

 ating a race. There appears, however, much 

 reason to believe that the opinion just now 

 stated is founded in error. In a state of nature 

 it not unfrequently happens, among those ani- 

 mals especially which do not pair, that the 

 strongest males take precedence of the weaker, 

 and naturally select the finest females (as 

 occurs in the deer); but in a state of domes- 

 ticity this cannot always be the case, and 

 inferior animals coming together give rise to 

 inferior offspring; but, if in the farm-yard 

 sufficient care be taken in the selection of the 

 breeding males and females, it does not appear 

 that near relationship has any effect in dete- 

 riorating the race, nor in impeding the trans- 

 mission of good qualities which may be found 

 in males and females of the same family. 



The belief now alluded to has been held in 

 relation to the human species also, and it is 

 affirmed that both the bodily and mental qua- 

 lities of the offspring suffer gradual and pro- 

 gressive injury from the continued mixture of 

 successive generations of the same family or a 

 small number of families. Hence we find 

 that the marriage of cousins-german, which 

 is according to law in this country, is repro- 

 bated as prejudicial by some; and various 

 royal families and aristocratic families are re- 

 ferred to as examples of the bad effect of 

 the restriction of conjugal union to a narrow 

 circle. 



It must be remembered, however, that the 

 mutual selection of the parents is not quite the 

 same in the human species as among the lower 

 animals; and in the examples just referred to 

 we feel even inclined to doubt whether, when 

 due allowance is made for the nature of their 

 education, it will be found that kings or 

 princes have become worse or less talented 

 in modern than in ancient times, or whether 

 among that class there is, on an average, a 

 greater proportion of stupid men than in other 

 ranks of society. 



The regularity of feature and beauty of the 

 Persian race has been greatly improved by 

 their choice of the most beautiful Circassian 

 and Georgian wives ; and there are many 

 examples of particular families in this country 

 in which regular and handsome features and a 

 well-knit and fully developed form of body 

 are hereditary. We shall not pursue the at- 

 tempt, however, which some have made to 

 apply the principles of cattle-breeding to the 

 human species ; for however desirable and 

 necessary an improvement of the breed may 

 appear to some Utopian philanthropists, we 



* We refer the reader to the Farmer's Series of 

 the Library of Useful Knowledge. Vols. Horse 

 and Cattle. 

 VOL. II. 



fear that the mind, with all its peculiar tastes, 

 prejudices, and passions, has too much to do 

 with the greater number of matrimonial al- 

 liances to allow physiological considerations 

 much jurisdiction. 



From the different facts now touched upon, 

 it is obvious that the original type of the parents 

 modifies that of their offspring; while, in gene- 

 ral, varieties accidentally acquired do not pass 

 in hereditary descent, unless they are of such a 

 nature as to constitute a permanently distinct 

 race or variety. 



In the mixture of different races of the human 

 species and of distinct species of animals we 

 recognise a constant tendency in succeeding 

 generations to return to the original type or pure 

 breed ; an effect which seems to proceed natu- 

 rally from the general law already announced, 

 that the purer the breed of either of the parents, 

 or in other words, the more nearly it approaches 

 the original type or unmixed race, the more 

 readily will its qualities descend to the off- 

 spring. When the mixed offspring of the black 

 and white races of men unites with either the 

 black or the white, the offspring in successive 

 generations becomes more and more nearly 

 allied to the pure breed with which the cross is 

 made, and at last wholly identified with it. 

 We must look upon this general law of the 

 tendency of all mixed varieties to return to the 

 original type, together with the circumstance that 

 hybrids rarely breed as means adopted by na- 

 ture for the preservation of distinct species. 



The transmission of hereditary resemblance, 

 either as regards the general structure of the 

 body or peculiarities, is not, however, invari- 

 able, nor always immediate from parents to off- 

 spring. Thus parents with certain deformities 

 may produce all their children naturally formed 

 and healthy ; or some of them only (in one 

 case the males, in a second the females, in a 

 third some of both sexes) may inherit the ab- 

 normal peculiarity, while the rest of the chil- 

 dren are healthy. But these healthy children, 

 from some disposition of their constitution, may 

 transmit to their descendants either in the first 

 or in a subsequent generation the defect which 

 existed in their parents. The varieties in this re- 

 spect in the human species are almost infinite. 

 Thus, in one family all the children resemble one 

 parent in a striking manner ; in another the 

 male children take after the father chiefly, the 

 females after the mother ; and in a third the 

 converse holds, the peculiarities of the father 

 descending principally to daughters, those of 

 the mother to sons, an arrangement of family 

 resemblance which is the most commonly pre- 

 valent according to M. Girou, who endeavours 

 to shew that family resemblance frequently 

 passes in an alternating manner from grand- 

 parent to grandchild. Thus, the grandchild 

 resembles the grandparent of the same sex, so 

 that a boy whose father is like his (the father's) 

 mother resembles most the grandfather, as in 

 the following plan. 



1st Generation. Grandf. Grandm. 

 2d ditto | Father 



3d ditto Son Daughter 



If it should be proved that a first or earlier 



2 r 



Grandf. Granilm . 

 Mother | 



Son Daugh. 



