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Show 170 THE DESCENT OF !U:AN. PART J. 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 advantage 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 consequences, such as they may be, of the continued preservation of the same line of descent, without any selection, are checked by men of rank always wishing to increase their wealth aud power ; and this they effect by marrying heiresses. But the daughters of parents who have produced single children, are themselves, as 1\ir. Galton has shewn/2 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 superiority 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 occasional hardships, the better development of the body. This may be inferred from civilised men having been 12 'Hereditary Genius,' 1870, p. 132-140. (;nAP. V. CIVILISED NATIONS. 171 found, whereyer compared, to be physically stronger than savages. They appear also to have equal powers of endurance, as has been proved in many adventurous expeditions. Even the great luxury of the rich can be but little detrimental ; for the expectation of life of our aristocracy, at all ages and of both sexes, is very little inferior to that of healthy English lives in the lower classes.13 We will now look to the intellectual faculties alone. If in each grade of society the members were divided into two equal bodies, the ·One including the intellectually superior and the other the inferior, there can be little doubt that the former would succeed best in all occupations and rear a greater number of children. Even in the lowest walks of life, skill and ability must be of some aclvanta.ge, though in many occupations, owing to the great division of labour, a very small Dne. Hence in civilised nations there will be some tendency to an increase both in the number and in the standard of the intellectually able. But I do not wish to assert that this tendency may not be more than counterbalanced in other ways, as by the multiplication of the reckless and improvident; but even to such as these, ability must be some advantage. It has often been objected to views like the foregoing, that the most. eminent men who have ever lived have left no offspring to inherit their great intellect. Mr. Galton says,14 "I regret I am unable to solve the "simple question whether, and how far, men and women " who are prodigies of genius are infertile. I have, how" ever, shewn that men of eminence are by no meaus so." 13 See the fifth and sixth columns, compiled from good authorities, in the t..'tble given in Mr. E. R Lankester's 'Comparative Longevity,' 1870, p. 115. l-1 'Hereditary Genius,' 1870, p. 330. |