186 THE DESCENT OF MAN 



and imitation — reason — experience, and even self-interest 

 —instruction during youth, and religious feelings. 



A most important obstacle in civilized countries to an 

 increase in the number of men of a superior class has been 

 strongly insisted on by Mr. Greg and Mr. Gralton," namely, 

 the fact that the very poor and reckless, who are often de- 

 graded by vice, almost invariably marry early, while the 

 careful and frugal, who are generally otherwise virtuous, 

 marry late in life, so that they may be able to support them- 

 selves and their children in comfort. Those who marry early 

 produce within a given period not only a greater number of 

 generations, but, as shown by Dr. Duncan," they produce 

 many more children. The children, moreover, that are born 

 by mothers during the prime of life are heavier and larger, 

 and therefore probably more vigorous, than those born at 

 other periods. Thus the reckless, degraded, and often 

 vicious members of society tend to increase at a quicker 

 rate than the provident and generally virtuous members, 

 Or as Mr. Grreg puts the case: "The careless, squalid, un 

 aspiring Irishman multiplies like rabbits: the frugal, fore 

 seeing, self-respecting, ambitious Scot, stern in his morality, 

 spiritual in his faith, sagacious and disciplined in his Intel 

 ligence, passes his best years in struggle and in celibacy 

 marries late, and leaves few behind him. Given a land 

 originally peopled by a thousand Saxons and a thousand 

 Celts — and in a dozen generations five-sixths of the popu- 

 lation would be Celts, but five-sixths of the property, of 

 the power, of the intellect, would belong to the one-sixth 

 of Saxons that remained. In the eternal 'struggle for ex- 

 istence,' it would be the inferior and less favored race that 



" "Fraser's Magazine," Sept. 1868, p. 353. "Macmillan's Magazine," 

 Aug. 1865, p. 318. The Rev. F. W. Farrar ("Fraser's Mag.," Aug. 18^0, 

 p. 264) lakes a different view. 



«» "On the Laws of the Fertility of Women," in "Transact. Royal See," 

 Edinburgh, vol. xxiv. p. 28t; now published separately under the title of 

 "Fecundity, Fertility, and Sterility," 1811. See, also, Mr. Galton, "Hereditary 

 G-enius," pp. 352-351, for observations to the above effect. 



