RESULTS OF CONSANGUINITY 117 a concomitant of the higher forms of the family." The eventual prohibition of incest and other forms of near consanguinity was due to the growth of religious ideas, and especially of totemistic beliefs, and not at all to physiological reasons, as M. Durkheim has shown.2 ... 66 In China, the land of tradition par excellence, no man may marry a woman of the same family name- a law which places a barrier against the progress of the harmful results of consanguinity.. One may judge of the effectiveness of this ordinance when one remembers that there exist only about 500 different family names in China. The extraordinary power of resistance possessed by the Chinese race is probably due in part to this institution."3 Dr. Schallmayer adds that, on the other hand, intermarriage with foreign peoples is also prohibited among the Chinese; an ordinance which likewise prevents racial degeneracy—at least, as far as women of a biologically inferior race are concerned. The genealogy of the family of a Dr. Bourgeois, reported by M. Delage, shows that this family originated in 1729 from a consanguineous marriage. After 130 years of existence, out of 91 marriages which had taken place, 68 were consanguineous, and of these 16 were marriages of accumulated consanguinity. In the 23 non-consanguineous marriages the mortality of children under seven years of age was 15 per cent., while it was only 12 per cent. among the children of the 68 consanguineous unions. The only defects observed among 416 individuals were two cases of epilepsy, one case of imbecility, one of accidental mental alienation, two cases of consumption, and one case of scrofula, derived from a non-consanguineous parent. Thus we have a total of five organic forms of disease, one accidental form, and one 1 Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 629. 2 E. Durkheim, La Prohibition de l'Inceste et ses Origines, in L'Année Sociologique, tome i. Paris, Alcan, 1898. 3 W. Schallmayer, Vererbung und Auslese im Lebenslauf der Völker, pp. 198, 199. Jena, 1903. form derived from exogamic heredity. Not one of these defects resulted from six marriages which were consanguineous in the fourth degree. Here is clear evidence that consanguinity is not intrinsically harmful. In the same way, Delage reports the observations of Voisin on the community of the island of Batz, on the French coast, in which consanguinity is the rule; this community is remarkable for the vigour and beauty of its inhabitants, and defects due to consanguinity are unknown.1 Dr. Charles Féré, the eminent psychiatrist of Bicêtre, remarks emphatically that "la consanguinité, qui a été accusée de pouvoir déterminer à elle seule des névropathies, et particulièrement la surdi-mutité, n'agit en réalité que par l'accumulation de l'hérédité. . . . La consanguinité n'agit qu'en favorisant l'hérédité des qualités familiales bonnes ou mauvaises; dans les familles saines elle est à rechercher, dans les familles morbides elle est à éviter." 2 Where morbid predispositions already exist consanguinity is harmful; for instance, as Dr. Féré remarks further on (p. 50), epilepsy and infantile eclampsy can be developed by the morbid consanguinity of neuropathic parents; and the neurasthenia which is so general a characteristic of the Jewish race is probably due to morbid conditions acting in conjunction with the consanguinity practised for so long by the Jews.3 Numerous biological examples could be cited in support of the fact that consanguinity is not intrinsically harmful. According to Samson, quoted by Delage, one of the finest herds of the Durham race of cows has its origin in the union of a bull with its mother or sisters, and with five or six generations of daughters and grand-daughters. Among the small herds of Brittany and Auvergne a single bull serves all the female members of the herd, 1 Delage, op. cit., p. 269. 2 Ch. Féré, La Famille Névropathique : théorie tératologique de l'hérédité et de la prédisposition morbides, et de la dégénérescence, pp. 15, 16. Paris, Alcan, 1898. 3 J. Béraud, Essai sur la Pathologie des Sémites (Thèse de Doctorat, Bordeaux, 1897). Cited by Féré, op. cit. RESULTS OF CONSANGUINITY 119 which are thus, all of them, his sisters, daughters, or aunts; and yet the race shows no signs of degeneracy. And in the selffertilisation which occurs among various species of crustaceans, etc., already mentioned-self-fertilisation often obligatory in the interest of the preservation of the species-it does not appear that any sort of degeneracy has been noticed in the species which are adapted to this method of reproduction. To sum up, we may say that consanguinity is not in itself a necessary cause of biological degeneracy. Where an unfavourable variation, through some cause or other, already exists, consanguinity tends to favour its dissemination and increase, and in so far consanguinity is a frequent cause of degeneracy; but where no morbid variation already exists, and in the case of old and well-adapted species, consanguinity may be practised without any disadvantageous results. Indeed, as consanguinity accumulates homogeneous ids in the germ-plasm, families which are thoroughly healthy in all their members may practise consanguinity with advantage, as every fresh intermarriage will result in an accumulation of favourable determinant complexesi.e., of healthy elements. CHAPTER VIII HYBRIDISM AND INTERCROSSING OPINIONS as to the social value of intercrossing were much divided during the first part of the latter half of the nineteenth century. On the one hand, Quatrefages believed, not only in the harmlessness, but in the positive benefits, of social hybridism. In defence of his thesis, he cited instances culled from the most varied countries-the South Sea Islands, Mexico, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile; and he declared that, notably in South America, "a population approaching ever nearer to the white type will end by absorbing all the other elements." Quatrefages also cited the case of the Pitcairn Island mutineers, afterwards removed to Norfolk Island. When Captain Beechey visited Pitcairn in 1825, he found there a population of seventy individuals remarkable for their strength, agility, and alert intelligence, not less than for their moral qualities and for their desire to instruct themselves. And yet this population was entirely hybrid, derived as it was from English sailors, Taitians, and Polynesian women.1 ... On the other hand, Gobineau saw in such crossing the source of racial degeneracy. "It would be erroneous," he wrote, "to pretend that all intercrossing is necessarily harmful. The offspring may be reared. Unfortunately, however, the older generation has at the same time been degraded, and this is an evil which nothing can compensate or make good. . . . There 1 Quatrefages, cited by Ribot, L'Hérédité psychologique, p. 345. Paris, Alcan, 1902. RESULTS OF HYBRIDISM 121 fore, though crossing may, within certain limits, be favourable to the mass of humanity, which it elevates and dignifies, that advantage is obtained at the expense of this same humanity, since intercrossing, on the other hand, abases it, humiliates it, degrades it, robs it of its noblest elements; and even were one to admit that it is better to raise a myriad of insignificant creatures to the height of mediocrity rather than to preserve the princely races whose blood, diluted, impoverished, poisoned, is the means of effecting this shameful metamorphosis, there still remains the ominous fact that intercrossing, once begun, never ceases. The mediocrities which were yesterday formed at the expense of all that was great unite to-day with greater mediocrities; and from these intermarriages, becoming ever more degraded, arises a confusion which, like that of Babel, results in the direst impotence, and leads society to hopeless and irremediable bankruptcy."1 It may be said of hybridism, as of consanguinity, that it is not in itself necessarily harmful; but hybridism presents, as a general rule, dangers greater than those of consanguinity. For consanguinity, practised in a family whose members are all sound and healthy, cannot but lead to the most favourable results; the difficulty is to find many families fulfilling this condition. Hybridism, on the other hand, has never been known to result in fertility persisting for more than four or five generations; and in the majority of cases hybridism results in complete sterility. If we turn to the vast domain of biology, which alone can give secure information on this subject, we find several curious phenomena associated with hybridism and crossing beyond the limits of the species. In the first place, hybridism does not always have sterility as a consequence, although it generally does, and although it always seems to reduce the fertility of the 1 J. A. de Gobineau, Essai sur l'Inégalité des Races Humaines, livre i., chap. xvi. 2nd edition, Paris, 1876. Vide also R. Dreyfus, La Vie et les Prophéties du Comte de Gobineau, p. 65. Paris, CalmannLévy, 1905. |