Ill-breeding

“ Eugenists deplore the haphazard way in which children are so often conceived. More care is often bestowed upon the conditions precedent to the conception of the domestic animals than is given by their owners to the conditions preceding the conception of their own offspring. Too often, while in the case of the domestic animals the utmost care is exercised regarding the arrangement for the breeding of valuable stock, the human offspring are mere "accidents," conceived without intention, forethought, or preparation; and too often is such conception undesired, regretted and unwelcome. ”

“ The justification, moreover, of an outworn incest-convention of this sort, through an appeal to the supposed evil effects of inbreeding, is without proper foundation.
It is now well known that inbreeding has in itself no evil effects. Stocks do not deteriorate through consanguineous marriages, but strong points as well as points of weakness are accentuated. Feeble-mindedness furnishes a good illustration of the results of breeding. ”

“ This has led some sex hygienists, child welfare workers, and persons similarly engaged, to attempt to capitalize the interest in eugenics by appropriating the name for their own use. We strongly object to any such misuse of the word, which should designate the application of [Pg 155] genetics to the human race. Sex hygiene, child welfare, and other sanitary and sociological movements should stand on their own feet and leave to eugenics the scope which its Greek derivation indicates for it,—the science of good breeding. ”

“ He also informs me that pure white beasts of either sex are so well known by experienced breeders to be comparatively infertile together, that they are never used for breeding purposes, so that "in some parts of the country, where a tendency to sterility had become so confirmed in the white race that they utterly died out," only the coloured breeds are now to be found. ”

“ In considering this question, therefore, we are justified in putting aside not only any kind of human breeding resembling the artificial breeding of animals, but also, at all events for the present, every compulsory prohibition on marriage or procreation. ”

“ Not only must the prohibition of incest be older than all breeding of domestic animals from which men could derive experience of the effect of inbreeding upon the characteristics of the breed, but the harmful consequences of inbreeding are not established beyond all doubt even to-day and in man they can be shown only with difficulty. ”

“ He must “breed in-and-in,” as it is called—that is, interbreed between animals more or less nearly related in blood—or he must seek rams from other flocks, at the risk of losing or changing the distinctive character of his flock, hitherto so carefully sought, and built up with so much painstaking. The opponents of in-and-in breeding contend that it renders diseases and all other defects hereditary, and that it tends to decrease of size, debility, and a general breaking up of the constitution. ”

“ While we desire very strongly to emphasize the importance of breeding and the great value of a good ancestry, it is only fair to utter a word of warning in this connection. Good ancestry does not necessarily make a man or woman a desirable partner. What stockmen know as the "pure-bred scrub" is a recognized evil in [Pg 230] animal breeding, and not altogether absent from human society. Due to any one or more of a number of causes, it is possible for a germinal degenerate to appear in a good family; discrimination should certainly be made against such an individual. ”

“ The cause of Eugenics has sometimes been prejudiced in the public mind by a comparison with the artificial breeding of domestic animals. In reality the two things are altogether different. In breeding animals a higher race of beings manipulates a lower race with the object of securing definite points that are of no use whatever to the animals themselves, but of considerable value to the breeders. ”

“ Eugenics, or the science of human good breeding, is just now the most popular of the problems concerning human sex and reproduction. In recent years, the biological investigators of heredity have published some startling facts which show that the human race must soon check its reckless propagation of the unfit and encourage reproduction by the best types of men and women. ”

“ In all considerations of the general question of Race Suicide, one must take note of the general question of Eugenics or Human Breeding. This because the sound breeding of the race operates in a direction diametrically opposed to Race Suicide, while unsound breeding operates directly in favor thereof.
When we consider the general subject of Eugenics we touch upon the highest ground, and are concerned with our best hopes for the future of the world. ”

“ Even if it should hereafter be proved that all the races of men were perfectly fertile together, he who was inclined from other reasons to rank them as distinct species, might with justice argue that fertility and sterility are not safe criterions of specific distinctness. We know that these qualities are easily affected by changed conditions of life, or by close inter-breeding, and that they are governed by highly complex laws, for instance, that of the unequal fertility of converse crosses between the same two species. ”

“ Inbreeding is not, of course, a crime, except against nature. Nor is it ordinarily dangerous. Combined, however, with the environmental influences of certain Rim planets, it may cause genuine, true-breeding mutations within the species, such as monsters, impressiono-telepaths, psycho-variants and other undesirables which, if allowed to multiply for a few generations, might become dominant. ”

“ The effect of selective breeding and culture is beyond dispute, and to many it seems obvious that all that is needed to perfect the human race and wipe out misery and crime is to supervise human breeding in the same way, so that the species may be controlled. ”

“ In our own race, on the other hand, the problem of breeding is presented in an entirely different shape. There is as yet no race of super-men who are prepared to breed man for their own special ends. As things are, even if we had the ability and the power, we should surely hesitate before we bred men and women as we breed dogs or fowls. We may, therefore, quite put aside all discussion of eugenics as a sort of higher cattle-breeding. ”

“ There is always great danger in breeding the young, small, and undeveloped female, and the dwarfed representative of a larger breed, as the offspring tend to partake of the large race characteristics and to show them even prior to birth. When impregnation has occurred in the very young or in the dwarfed female there are two alternatives—to induce abortion or to wait until there are attempts at parturition and to extract by embryotomy if impracticable otherwise. ”

“ These are the enthusiasts conspicuous to-day as leaders of the so-called eugenics movement looking to the im6provement of mankind on stock-breeding principles—by sterilisation of the “unfit,” stricter marriage laws, etc. Nor can it be denied that they have on their side a formidable array of facts which would seem to demonstrate the unescapable fatality of a bad heredity. ”

“ The abortion having once commenced, we know that the peculiarly sensitive condition of the breeding animal will cause its extension, even where the original cause may not be in operation; but their combined action renders the loss far more serious. If we add to this the tendency which an animal receives from her first abortion, to repeat it when next in calf, we see how seriously the mischief becomes multiplied. ”

“ Among domestic animals close interbreeding, it is well known, leads to infertility and degeneration; and Darwin's researches prove that self-fertilization in the vegetable kingdom produces the same results. ”

“ Furthermore, breeding between animals closely allied in parentage is prone to lead to degeneracy, physical weakness, and mental stupidity, while impotence and sterility are frequent concomitants, and none but experienced breeders should attempt so hazardous an experiment. ”

“ The consequences of close interbreeding carried on for too long a time, are, as is generally believed, loss of size, constitutional vigour, and fertility, sometimes accompanied by a tendency to malformation. Manifest evil does not usually follow from pairing the nearest relations for two, three, or even four generations; but several causes interfere with our detecting the evil—such as the deterioration being very gradual, and the difficulty of distinguishing between such direct evil and the inevitable augmentation of any morbid tendencies which may be latent or apparent in the related parents. ”

“ In many ecclesiastical and national laws we find the marriage of first cousins and of uncle or aunt with niece or nephew forbidden; and even a prohibition of the marriage of a man with his deceased wife’s sister.
Hegar considers the danger of inbreeding to be very great in the human species; for whereas in the lower animals breeders employ a methodical and carefully considered selection of the best specimens, nothing of this kind occurs among human beings; and the health of modern civilized man is such that there are few families without a skeleton in the closet. ”

“ How, then, can we say what is the type to breed from, even if we confine our attention to one country? If, on the other hand, we look farther afield, and study the results of race-mixture or "miscegenation," we but encounter fresh puzzles. That the half-breed is an unsatisfactory person may be true; and yet, until the conditions of his upbringing are somehow discounted, the race problem remains exactly where it was. Or, again, it may be true that miscegenation increases human fertility, as some hold ”

“ There is another and somewhat similar fallacy which deserves a passing word, although it is of more concern to the livestock breeder than to the eugenist. It is called telegony and is, briefly, this: that conception by a female results in a definite modification of her germ-plasm from the influence of the male, and that this modification will be shown in the offspring she may subsequently bear to a second male. The only case where it is often invoked in the human race is in miscegenation. A white woman has been married to a Negro, for instance, and has borne one or more mulatto offspring. ”

“ Fecundal selection is said by them to be constantly tending to increase the reproductive rate, because fecundity is partly a matter of heredity, and the fecund parents leave more offspring with the same characteristic. Lethal selection, on the contrary, constantly asserts its power to reduce the reproductive rate, because the reproductive demands on the parents reduce their chances of life by interference with their natural ability of self-protection. ”

“ Any marriage between persons who have the same faults of inheritance causes the offspring to accumulate faults and to degenerate. Close kinship creates a probable danger that faults will be accumulated. This is a logical deduction. Embryology, at present, seems to teach that there is a combination and extrusion of germ units of such a kind that the physiological process conforms only in a measure to this logical deduction, and the historical-statistical verification of the harm of inbreeding remains very imperfect. ”

“ The former kind is alone operative in determining evolution in the animal world and probably also among the less civilised peoples; but, as civilisation advances, the causes of infertility of the other kind increase constantly in effectiveness, while the former operate with less and less intensity. It is through the causes which diminish fertility merely, rather than exterminate individuals, that changes of racial quality of nations are now being, and in the future will be, principally determined. ”

“ X. comes, let us say, from a family in which there is a persistent taint of epilepsy, or insanity. X. is a normal, useful, [Pg 199] conscientious member of society. To talk of segregating such an individual would be rash. But X. has given some thought to heredity and eugenics, and decides that he, or she, will refrain from marriage, in order to avoid transmitting the family taint to another generation. Here we have, in effect, a non-coercive restriction of reproduction. What shall we say of the action of X. in remaining celibate,—is it wise or unwise? To be encouraged or condemned? ”

“ Consanguinity.—Before concluding this chapter we must study the question of hybrids. It is important to know to what point fecundity and descent are influenced by the degree of relationship between the two procreators. Conjugation probably arises from the general necessity of organisms to reënforce their race by variety. Consanguinity perpetuated is harmful to the species, in the same way as parthenogenesis, or indefinite reproduction by fission or budding. It produces enfeeblement and degeneration of the race, and leads to extinction by causing sterility. ”

“ Lethal natural selection, then, has been and still is a factor of great importance in the evolution of the race, but at present it is doing little or nothing that promises to further the ideal of eugenics—race betterment.
But lethal natural selection is only half the story. It is obvious that if the constitution of a race can be altered by excess of deaths in a certain class, it can equally be altered by excess of births in a certain class. ”

“ The higher mortality of the latter is by no means a purifying process of weeding, but the expression of greater sickliness which permanently harms the surviving also. The division of labour between man and wife, with reference to the care of the offspring, is one of Nature's institutions which is of the greatest advantage for parents as well as children.
C 106-107
Inbreeding and the Crossing of Races. On the whole with mankind inbreeding is viewed with fear, and justly so, in view of our customary carelessness with regard to the physical and mental conditions of those who contract marriage. ”