216 MENTAL DIFFERENCE AND DISOEDEE. 



reared not one was worth his salt.' Besides which, the pups 

 were subject to various bodily disorders for eighteen months, 

 when they were destroyed as worthless. Cross-breeding from 

 certain stock seems also to produce mental and physical 

 degeneration in the offspring. Thus in camel breeding, if 

 the male parent be an Arabian, and the female a Bactrian 

 camel, the offspring, besides being weak in body, is ' vicious 

 and intractable in temper' (Wood). The general testimony 

 of veterinary and other writers tends to show that too close 

 breeding is apt to beget in the offspring a morbid sensitive- 

 ness or nervousness, and the insane diathesis ; that it unfa- 

 vourably affects the constitution or temperament, producing 

 degeneracy or disease, both mental and bodily, as in man. 



On the whole, however, it appears to me that the question 

 of consanguinity in the parents, as a cause of mental defect or 

 disorder in the offspring, cannot be said to be definitely settled 

 either as regards the lower animals or man. As concerns 

 the latter, it has been shown conclusively that, while much 

 mischief results in certain cases from consanguine marriage, 

 in certain others none can be detected. Recently the whole 

 question was carefully re-examined by Mr. George Darwin, 

 of Cambridge, son of the most celebrated naturalist of our 

 day. But he does not seem to have added to what was 

 previously known. Among other animals the influence may 

 be, and probably is, more pernicious in proportion as the prac- 

 tice is much more common than it is in man. But the exact 

 degree of influence remains to be demonstrated. What is 

 the nature of the evil result, both in man and other animals, 

 we know when an evil result happens. But, just as in man, 

 in all probability evil does not necessarily or always result. 



