204 CROSSING AND CLOSE-INTERBREEDING. 



and showing great evil ; and the cynical query, how 

 the others avoid the inference from such phenomena? 



Those, to whom it never has occurred, to consider 

 whether interbreeding may not be merely the occasion 

 of the evils entailed, and not the cause, have long been 

 puzzled to know, to which side, the balance of the evi- 

 dence inclines. If disciplined in scientific habits of 

 thought, they find, — when assured as to which side 

 has the preponderance of testimony, — that such as- 

 surance aids not at all to extricate them from their 

 quandary. For, what is, then, to be done with the 

 residual facts, — the well attested phenomena, advanced 

 in support of the argument on the other side? There 

 will still remain, to plague the man who has settled, in 

 his own mind, that the weight of the evidence is on a 

 particular side, a perplexing array of facts, which are 

 as far from being resolved scientifically, as they are 

 impossible to be gainsaid. If the conclusion achieved 

 be, that interbreeding does cause evil, how deal with 

 the many instances showing, that close interbreeding ■ 

 may be carried on, in the closest degree of relation- 

 ship, for generation upon generation ; and which refuse 

 to be moulded into even seeming accordance with such 

 conclusion? And, if the other opinion be adopted, 

 there equally remains a number of similarly stubborn 

 facts, which refuse to conform to any such award. 



There was, once, a man named Buckle. This man 

 commenced to write what he termed a "History of 

 Civilization in England." Happily, for civilization in 

 England, he, his demise made, before the work was 

 half finished. He plumed himself upon being an in- 



