582 The Deceased Wife's Sister's Question . [October, 
of the Roman Catholic faith, much more common among 
Protestants, and exceedingly common among Jews. The 
question was naturally raised how the religious persuasion 
of a married couple could conceivably affeCt the liability of 
their offspring to deaf-mutism ? The answer was not diffi- 
cult to find : the Catholic church does not permit inter- 
marriage between cousins, we believe even to the third 
degree. Among Protestants the same laxity prevails in 
Germany as there does in England, whilst among the Jews 
such marriages are not merely tolerated, but even encou- 
raged, possibly for the sake of keeping the property of a 
family together. The result is the more serious as through- 
out Europe the Jews, from the obedience which they still 
render to the admirable sanitary laws of Moses, have in 
many respeCts] a higher standard of health than their 
Gentile neighbours. 
Assuming it, then, as a known faCt that consanguineous 
marriages are racially injurious, we need not wonder that 
from a very remote age — probably from the pre-historical 
days — laws and customs prevailed for the prevention of such 
unions. The bewilderingly complex Marriage-Laws of many 
savage tribes (e.g., of the Australian aborigines), whatever 
else they may effeCt or purpose, have at least the result of 
compelling every man to marry some woman not of his own 
kindred. The like must have been the consequence of 
marriage by capture, traces of which survive even among 
civilised communities. In man, then, as among his “ poor 
relations,” the objection to the intermarriage of any two 
individuals is the prospective probable deterioration of the 
race. In him this became a conviction founded on recorded 
experience and couched in words. Among the lower animals 
it was, where not dependent upon circumstances beyond the 
knowledge and control of the individual, what is commonly 
called an “ instinCt.” 
But in mankind, unfortunately, the principle early became 
adulterated. The rational limits which Nature places to 
marriage were relaxed in some directions and narrowed in 
others. The relaxation has consisted in permitting the 
intermarriage of cousins, which is now unfortunately sanc- 
tioned in all civilised communities except where the Catholic 
religion is acknowledged. This serious practical error was 
probably due either to covetousness — the desire to re-unite 
portions of an estate which had been divided among the 
sons of a former possessor — or to a pseudo-aristocratic senti- 
ment. Thus the ancient Peruvian incas enfeebled themselves 
by constant intermarriage with blood relations, and thus, to 
