EUGENESIC HYBE1DITY. 23 



nally become intermixed in nearly equal proportions. Finally, 

 in these latter departments, where the intermixture has been 

 strongest, the population is neither less handsome, nor less 

 robust or prolific than in the others. As regards the vigour of 

 the constitution, I have consulted in the registers for recruiting 

 the special list of exemptions on account of infirmities, that 

 is, for other physical causes than stature. I have found that, 

 other circumstances being equal, there are as many infirm in 

 1000 conscripts in the purest departments, as in the mixed 

 districts. I cannot here dwell any longer upon this proposi- 

 tion, of which I have given a rigorous demonstration in my 

 Hdmoire sur I'Ethnologie do la France. 



There remains now the question of fecundity. The causes 

 which determine the increase or the decay of a population are 

 so multifarious, and for the most part so foreign to ethnological 

 influences, that we cannot without committing grave errors, 

 estimate the degree of fecundity of different races, in comparing 

 for each of them, the number of births and deaths. It appears, 

 nevertheless, very probable that all the races are not equally 

 prolific, and the mind easily perceives that there must be be- 

 tween them notable differences. It is, therefore, unnecessary 

 that in order a mixture should be eugenesic the fecundity of the 

 cross-breed should be absolutely equal to that of individuals 

 of pure blood. Had it been demonstrated by strict numbers, 

 that a mixed race, by the simple fact of intermixture breeds 

 less rapidly than the two parent races, and were it demon- 

 strated that it presents a greater number of cases of sporadic 

 sterility, it would by no means result from it that this mixed 

 race is incapable of maintaining itself and increasing by itself. 

 The intermixture would cease to be eugenesic if the fact of 

 sterility became sufficiently general to render the births dimi- 

 nishing with every new generation, so that at length the gaps 

 caused by death could no longer be filled and the race would 

 prove inevitably destined, sooner or later, to become extinct. 

 Thus, even if it were demonstrated that the offspring of an in- 

 termixture between Celts and Kimris are somewhat less pro- 

 lific than the ancestors of the pure races, and that the mixed 

 populations increased less rapidly than the others ; the Kirnro- 



