GERMINAL SELECTION 147 



short-sightedness has been proved to be a frequent character even 

 among our domesticated animals, such as the dog and the horse. 

 These animals receive protection and maintenance from Man, and 

 their survival and reproduction no longer depend on the acuteness of 

 their sight, and thus the eye has fallen from its original perfection, 

 just as in Man, although in this case reading and writing play no part. 



A whole series of similar slight deteriorations of individual 

 organs and systems of organs might be enumerated, all of which have 

 appeared in consequence of long and intensive culture in Man. All 

 these must depend upon germinal selection, on a gradually progres- 

 sive weakening of the determinant-groups concerned, under the 

 conditions of panmixia, that is, in the absence of positive selection. 



To these must be added the deterioration of the mammary-glands 

 and breasts, and the inability to suckle the offspring which results 

 chiefly from this. Here we have a variational tendency which could 

 not appear in a people at a lower stage of culture, and it has not 

 become general in the lower classes of society among ourselves. 



The muscular weakness of the higher classes is another case in 

 point, aiid all gymnastics and sports will be of no avail as long as a 

 relative weakness of the muscles is not a hindrance to gaining a live- 

 lihood, and having a family. Even universal conscription will do 

 nothing to check this falling off of the bodily strength. Certainly 

 military service strengthens thousands, and hundreds of thousands of 

 individuals, but it does not prevent the weaklings from multiplying, 

 and thus reproducing the race-deterioration. But it would indeed be 

 well if only those who had gone through a term of military service 

 were allowed to beget children. 



It is only among the peasantry, inasmuch as they really work 

 and do not merely look on as proprietors of the ground, that such 

 a deterioration of the general muscular strength could not become the 

 permanent variational tendency of the determinants concerned, because 

 among genuine peasants bodily strength is a condition of having and 

 supporting a family — at least on an average. 



The diminution in the firmness and thickness of the bones in the 

 higher classes, and manj^ another mark of civilization, must be looked 

 at from the point of view of panmixia and germinal selection ; 

 perhaps also the smaller hands and feet which frequently occur along 

 with a more graceful general build in the higher ranks of European 

 peoples. It would certainly not be surprising if in families which 

 usually intermarry, and which in no way depend for their material 

 subsistence on the possession of large and powerful hands and feet or 

 bones generally, a downward variation of the relevant germ-deter- 



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