CROSSING AND CXOSE-INTERBREEDING. 219 



dissimilarity of development. If the connection be very 

 remote, there is even some probability, that good, in- 

 stead of evil, will result from pairing; for, it is likely, 

 that though the parents may, perhaps, be equally de- 

 fective, their defects may lie, in each, in a different por- 

 tion of the structure, from what they do in the other ; 

 and, thus such, or some of the defects, in either, may 

 then be supplied, in the offspring, by corresponding, 

 positive developments, in the other. 



There is evil wrought upon the aggregate of every 

 organism, in proportion to the amount of characters 

 which are reduced or suppressed. The breeding of 

 one such individual, with another, defective in exactly 

 the same characters, aggravates the evil. The reason, 

 and the sole reason, why relationship enters as an 

 element into the problem, is because the ratio of the 

 development of the characters, is similarly incomplete. 

 To produce evil, the ratio of development of the charac- 

 ters must, in the animals interbred, be a like, false ratio. 

 If a true ratio, no evil follows; if a false ratio, but not 

 a like ratio, good instead of evil may flow; for, the 

 deficiencies in the ratio of each, are likely, then, to be 

 supplied by positive quantities in the ratio of the other. 



Two cousins may be seemingly free from all defect ; 

 but, nevertheless, may possess, and most probably 

 will possess, a similarly disproportionate development. 

 Lessened fertility, and loss of constitutional vigor, in 

 their offspring, will then be displayed, through the evil 

 of the disproportionate development, above assumed, 

 being intensified by the progeny's having transmitted 

 to it the accumulated evil. 



