178 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



causes increasing among that people the number of happy marriages, 

 and consequently giving vigor to the population. This is one of the 

 grand secrets of race-improvement by heredity. Instead of looking 

 for wealth, men must look for beauty, character, and virtue. So long 

 as they persist in forming alliances with women of feeble constitution, 

 or lacking essential qualifications, the race will decline and degenerate. 

 And, of course, the same deplorable consequences follow from the mar- 

 riage of noble and well- organized women with men of inferior type. 

 Fortunately, the tact and the instinctive dignity of women, and their 

 natural liking for what is exalted, usually prevent their descending 

 to debasing or dangerous alliances, and nearly always guard them 

 against ill-assorted matches. " In place of giving way to sympathetic 

 emotions," says M. Sedillotj " which disorder the judgment, let one 

 put himself the question, on seeing a person that pleases him, if he 

 wants to have sons and daughters of that same type ; and it is curious 

 to note how often the reply will be in the negative. It were unreason- 

 able, no doubt, to forego present advantage for the sake of some un- 

 certain advantage in the future ; still, wisdom requires us to bring the 

 two into harmony, and to remember how swiftly time passes away, 

 and how little is the value of the passing hour, as compared with the 

 hopes and the enjoyments of the future." M. Sedillot adds that, in ordi- 

 nary times, hygiene, the moral evidence of the advantages of health and 

 intelligence, would suffice for the regeneration of a people. France, 

 unfortunately, has need of stronger and more efficacious agencies ; she 

 must go back to the very fountain-head of regeneration and of life, 

 that is to say, must discover the speediest means of insuring to the 

 coming generations a future of virtue and mettle. In other times it 

 may have appeared difficult or ill-advised to import, into questions 

 touching the reproduction of man, figures and estimates not unlike 

 those employed in zootechny, where selection has long been practised. 

 But now such scruples must give way before the dictates of necessity, 

 which tells us in the most unmistakable way that we cannot afford to 

 commit one blunder more. 



Here we have to point out the means of staying or of reducing as 

 far as possible the fatal heredity of disease, which is so powerful an 

 obstacle to the improvement of the race. The preventive or prophy- 

 lactic agencies which are to be employed to counteract the evolution 

 of disease-germs depend, of course, on the nature of these latter. A 

 consumptive mother must not suckle her infant ; she ought to intrust 

 it to the care of a good nurse. Those whose parents were affected 

 with chest-diseases thrive but ill on an excessively animal diet : a 

 regimen of white meats and light foods is best suited for them. As 

 regards occupation, they should carefully avoid all such as would 

 expose them to inhale dust, or to undergo alternations of heat and 

 cold, or to use the voice habitually. Residence by the sea-side, in 

 the south, and in localities where consumption is of rare occurrence, 



