118 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



form derived from exogamic lieredity. Not one of these defects 

 resulted from six marriages which were consanguineous in the 

 fourth degree. Here is clear evidence that consanguinity is 

 not intrinsically harmful. In the same way, Delage reports the 

 observations of Voisin on the community of the island of Batz, 

 on the French coast, in which consanguinity is the rule ; this 

 community is remarkable for the vigour and beauty of its inhabi- 

 tants, and defects due to consangiiinity are unknown.^ 



Dr. Charles Fere, the eminent psychiatrist of Bicetre, remarks 

 emphatically that " la consanguinite, qui a ete accusee de pouvoir 

 determiner a elle seule des nevropathies, et particulierement la 

 surdi-mutite, n'agit en realite que par 1' accumulation de I'here- 

 dite. ... La consanguinite n'agit qu'en favorisant I'heredite 

 des quahtes familiales bonnes ou mauvaises ; dans les families 

 saines elle est a rechercher, dans les families morbides eUe est a 

 eviter."2 Where morbid predispositions already exist con- 

 sanguinity is harmful ; for instance, as Dr. Fere remarks further 

 on (p. 50), epilepsy and infantile eclampsy can be developed by 

 the morbid consanguinity of neuropathic parents ; and the 

 neurasthenia which is so general a characteristic of the Jewish 

 race is probably due to morbid conditions acting in conjunction 

 with the consanguinity practised for so long by the Jews.^ 



Numerous biological examples could be cited in support of the 

 fact that consanguinity is not intrinsically harmful. According 

 to Samson, quoted by Delage, one of the finest herds of the 

 Durham race of cows has its origin in the union of a bull with its 

 mother or sisters, and with five or six generations of daughters 

 and grand-daughters. Among the small herds of Brittany and 

 Auvergne a single bull serves all the female members of the herd, 



1 Delage, op. ciU, p. 269. 



^ Ch. F6r6, La Famille Nevropaihique : theorie teratohgique de rheredite 

 et de la predisposition morbides, et de la degenerescence, pp. 15, 16. Paris, 

 Alcan, 1898. 



^ J. B6raud, Essai sur la Paihologie des Semites (These de Doctoral, 

 Bordeaux, 1897). Cited by Fere, op. cit. 



