270 Life and Letters of Francis Galton 



Marriage within the clan may be considered unmanly — a wife must be 

 captured. Customs like these are not instincts, they have arisen from ideas 

 of social profit. Yet they, like the complicated Australian marriage system, 

 have religious sanction, nay, may be enforced by the penalty of death. 



" Eugenics deals with what is more valuable than money or lands, namely the heritage of 

 a high character, capable brains, fine physique, and vigour ; in short, with all that is most 

 desirable for a family to possess as a birthright. It aims at the evolution and preservation of 

 high races of men, and it as well deserves to be as strictly enforced as a religious duty as the 

 Levirate law ever was." (pp. 6-7.) 



Next Galton refers to the influence of taboo. 



"A vast complex of motives can be brought to bear upon the naturally susceptible minds 

 of children, and of uneducated adults who are mentally little more than big children. The 

 constituents of this complex are not sharply distinguishable, but they form a recognisable 

 whole that has not yet received an appropriate name, in which religion, superstition, custom, 

 tradition, law and authority all have part. This group of motives will for the present purpose 

 be entitled ' immaterial ' in contrast to material ones. My contention is that the experience 

 of all ages and all nations shows that the immaterial motives are frequently far stronger than 

 the material ones, the relative power of the two being well illustrated by the tyranny of taboo 

 in many instances, called as it is by different names in different places." (pp. 8-9.) 



The mere terror of having unwittingly broken a taboo may fill a man with 

 the deepest remorse, or even kill him. 



Under our own " civilised " law also and with religious sanctification, we 

 meet the taboos of the prohibited degrees of marriage. They are in many cases 

 not questions of instinct, but are primarily designed to preserve family life. 



"The marriage of a brother and sister would excite a feeling of loathing among us that 

 seems implanted by nature, but which further inquiry will show has mainly arisen from 

 tradition and custom." (p. 9.) 



Galton holds that a repugnance to inbreeding may have arisen from harm 

 arising from too close inbreeding, but biologically the evil appears — when 

 the stock is good — to have been much exaggerated. He thinks therefore 

 that desire not to infringe the sanctity and freedom of the social relations of 

 a family group has led to the taboo. " It is quite conceivable that a non- 

 eugenic marriage should hereafter excite no less loathing than that of a 

 brother and sister would do now." (p. 11.) Personally the biographer would 

 consider the marriage of two individuals both members of unrelated stocks 

 tainted with insanity as more heinous than the marriage of a brother and 

 sister of sound stock — the risk of the latter to offspring depends on the 

 existence of unrecognised and undesirable latent characters ; there is almost 

 certainty in the former case that a definite percentage of the children will 

 either exhibit or transmit the taint. The thorough conviction by a nation 

 that no worthier object can exist for man than the improvement of his own 

 race is for Galton in itself the acceptance of Eugenics as a national religion. 

 If we examine the reasons for such irresistible streams of popular emotion 

 as are vaguely symbolised in respect for the national flag, in the King 

 as personifying our country, indeed in all phases of patriotism, we shall 

 discover that their springs lie in Galton's "immaterial motives," and it 



