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Show 176 THE DESCENT OF MAN. ) ll d d ,· the years 1863 and 1864, with the 10 c goo , unng . S tl 1 . entire population above the age of twenty m .._ co am . for instance, out of every 1000 unmarried men, betw~en the ages of twenty and thirty, !4·U7 an~ually died, whilst of the married ouly 7·24 died, that IS less tha?half. 23 Dr. Stark remarks on this, "Bachelorhood IS ·"more destructive to life than the most unwholesome "trades, or than residence in an unwholesome ho~se or " district where there has never been the mo.st distant " attem tat sanitary improvement." He consu1ers .that the less~ned mortality is the direct result of "marnage, "and the more regular domestic habits whie~ attend that "state." He admits, however, that the m~empera~~· .profiigate, and criminal classes, whose du~·atwn of .hie is low, do not commonly marry; and It mu~t h.kewise be admitted that men with a weak constitutiOn, ill health, or any great infirmity in body or mind, will often not wish to marry, or will be rejected. Dr. Stark .. seems to have come to the conclusion that marriage in itself is a main cause of prolonged life, from finding that aO'ed married men still have a considerable advantaO'e i~ this respect over the unmarried of the same b ] • advanced age; but every one must have mown mstances of men, who with weak health during youth did not marry, and yet have survived to old age, though remaininO' weak and therefore always with a lessened chance of life. rrhere is anothet• remarkable circumstance which seems to support Dr. Stark's conclusion, namely, that widows and widowers in France suffer in comparison with the married a very heavy rate of mortality; but Dr. Farr attributes this to the poverty and 23 I have taken the mean of the quinquennial means, given in 'The Tenth Annual Report of Births, Deaths, &c., in Scotln.nd,' 1867. The quotation from Dr. Stark is copied from an article in the 'Daily News,' -()ct. 17th, 1868, which Dr. Farr considers very careful1y written. C:rAP. V. CIVILISED NATIO~S. 177 evil habi~s consequent on the disruption of the family, and to gnef. On the whole we may conclude with Dr. Farr that the lesser mortality of married than of unmarried men, which seems to be a general law, "is mainly "due to the constant elimination of imperfect types, and "to the skilful selection of the finest individuals out of "each successive generation;" the selection relating only to the marriage state, and acting on all corporeal, intellectual, and moral qualities. 'Ve may, therefore, infer that sound and good men who out of prudence remain for a time unmarried do not suffer a hi.O'h rate of mortality. 0 If the various checks specified in the two last paragraphs, and perhaps others as yet unknown, do not prevent the reckless, the vicious and otherwise inferior members of society fi·om increasing at a quicker rate than the better class of men, the nation will retrograde, as has occurred too often in the history of the world. 'Ve must remember that progress is no invariable rule. It is most difficult to say why one civilised n~tion rises, becomes more powerful, and spreads more widely, than another; or why the same nation progresses more. at one time tha.n at another. We can only say that It depends on an mcrease in the actual number of the population, on the number of the men endowed with high intellectual and moral faculties as well as on their standar~ of excellence. Corpore~! structure, except so far as vigour of body leads to vigour of mind appears to have little influence. ' . It has been urged by several writers that as high Intelleetual powers are advantageous to a nation, the old Greeks, who stood some grades higher in intellect than any race that has ever existed,24 ought to have 24 See the in.genious ~ncl original argument on this subject by Mr. Galton, 'Hereditary Genms,' p. 3-!0-342. VOL. I. N |