170 
THE DESCENT OF MAN, 
Part I. 
nation here occurs, as we daily see rich men, who happen 
to be fools or profligate, squandering away all their 
wealth. 
Primogeniture with entailed estates is a more direct 
evil, though it may formerly have been a great advan- 
tage by the creation of a dominant class, and any 
government is better than anarchy. The eldest sons, 
though they may be weak in body or mind, generally 
marry, whilst the younger sons, however superior in these 
respects, do not so generally marry. Nor can worthless 
eldest sons with entailed estates squander their wealth. 
But here, as elsewhere, the relations of civilised life are 
so complex that some compensatory checks intervene. 
The men who are rich through primogeniture are able 
to select generation after generation the more beautiful 
and charming women ; and these must generally be 
healthy in body and active in mind. The evil con- 
sequences, such as they may be, of the continued pre- 
servation of the same line of descent, without any 
selection, are checked by men of rank always wishing to 
increase their wealth and power ; and this they effect 
by marrying heiresses. But the daughters of parents 
who have produced single children, are themselves, as 
Mr. Galton has shewn , 12 apt to be sterile ; and thus 
noble families are continually cut off in the direct line, 
and their wealth flows into some side channel; but 
unfortunately this channel is not determined by supe- 
riority of any kind. 
Although civilisation thus checks in many ways the 
action of natural selection, it apparently favours, by 
means of improved food and the freedom from occa- 
sional hardships, the better development of the body. 
This may be inferred from civilised men having been 
12 1 Hereditary Genius,’ 1870, p. 132-140. 
