want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a
domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one
is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an
incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally
acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in
the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused.
Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason,
without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon
may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he
is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to
neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent
benefit, with an overwhelming present evil. We must therefore bear the
undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their
kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action,
namely that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so
freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by
the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is more
to be hoped for than expected.
In every country in which a large standing army is kept up, the finest
young men are taken by the conscription or are enlisted. They are thus
exposed to early death during war, are often tempted into vice, and are
prevented from marrying during the prime of life. On the other hand the
shorter and feebler men, with poor constitutions, are left at home, and
consequently have a much better chance of marrying and propagating
their kind. (11. Prof. H. Fick ( Einfluss der Naturwissenschaft auf das
Recht, June 1872) has some good remarks on this head, and on other
such points.)
Man accumulates property and bequeaths it to his children, so that the
children of the rich have an advantage over the poor in the race for
success, independently of bodily or mental superiority. On the other
hand, the children of parents who are short-lived, and are therefore on
an average deficient in health and vigour, come into their property
sooner than other children, and will be likely to marry earlier, and
leave a larger number of offspring to inherit their inferior
constitutions. But the inheritance of property by itself is very far
from an evil; for without the accumulation of capital the arts could
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