290 Heredity. 



complicated forms of civilization. The problem is, how we are to 

 raise the masses to the level of those who, at the outset, were 

 greatly above them. Can this be done ? 



We would observe, first of all, that so far is this aspiration from 

 being chimerical, that every effort of civilization has it and it alone 

 in view. But the end is attained by means of education, an 

 external agency, different from heredity, which acts from within. 

 As we view it, education is unequal to this task. There remains, 

 in some natures, a substratum of unintelligent savagery which 

 may be overlaid by civilization, but never done away. Hereditary 

 transmission alone could modify them. We will return to this 

 point hereafter. 1 



From the psychological standpoint, therefore, the only one that 

 concerns us here, the question takes this form : Can we, by means 

 of selection and heredity, increase in a race the sum of its in- 

 telligence and morality ? 



Heredity is an effect it depends on generation, and generation 

 depends on the nature of the agents; it is, therefore, at the root of 

 the matter. How assort the parents with a view to the ameliora- 

 tion of the race ? This question, simple as it appears, has given 

 rise to inextricable disputes, which we thus summarize : 



Suppose a large family, gifted physically and morally, its members 

 healthy, strong, intelligent, active ; assign to them all some one 

 talent, that for the stage, for instance, as in the Kemble family. 

 Ought the members to intermarry with one another in order to 

 fix this talent definitively, and to make it organic, so to speak? 

 Some will call such a union desirable, others detestable. There is 

 an eager contest in our day over this question of consanguineous 

 marriages. Ancient legislation, evidently giving expression to the 

 prevailing opinions, and which must have been based as well on 

 experience as on prejudice, is not at all unanimous on this point. 

 Consanguineous marriages are condemned by the laws of Manu, 

 the Mosaic code, the laws of Rome, the decrees of the Christian 

 councils, and the texts of the Koran. Thus opinion has been 

 adverse to them among nearly all civilized peoples; yet the ancient 

 laws of the Persians and of the Egyptians permitted the marriage 



1 See chap. iii. 2. 



