THE SELECTIVE INFLUENCE OF WAR 207 
during war, are often tempted into vice and are prevented from 
marrying during the prime of life. On the other hand, the 
shorter and feebler men, with poor constitutions, are left at 
home, and consequently have a much better chance of marrying 
and propagating their kind.” 
Where there is universal military service the best of the youths 
are taken for recruits and are withdrawn from opportunities for 
marrying during the period when they are forced to bear arms. 
Barrack life, at least until recently, has led to the increase of 
venereal disease which has always been one of the chief evils 
of military life. Hospital admissions from the armies of Great 
Britain, United States and several other countries have been 
frightfully high. The disastrous consequences of venereal infec- 
tion in later married life need not be dwelt upon. Matters are 
rapidly improving, however, in this regard, and the recent statis- 
tics of the American Army afford a remarkable example of what 
may be accomplished. Should the venereal peril be overcome 
perhaps the chief evil of army life would be abolished. In a 
system of military conscription which takes young men of but 
20 years of age and keeps them in training for two or three years 
it is claimed that the effect of delaying marriage would not be 
significant. In most cases, however, the returning recruit is 
more or less delayed in making the economic preparation for 
marriage, so that this event may take place considerably later 
than it otherwise would have occurred. 
What would seem, a priori, to be the effects of war from the 
principles of heredity and selection Dr. Jordan attempts to sub- 
stantiate by an inductive study of what the after effects of war 
have actually been. In their volume on War’s Aftermath D. S. 
Jordan and H. E. Jordan give the results of their studies of the 
effect of the Civil War on the population of Virginia. Their 
studies consisted of an intensive investigation of two counties, 
and a more cursory survey of several others, “the whole checked 
up by the opinions of fifty-five Confederate veterans of excep- 
tional character and intelligence.” I quote some of the chief 
conclusions drawn from the work: 
