Part 2 of 3
Keeping to the analogy, which seems to be helpful, the reader will see that, although the probability is that the wools parcelled together at haphazard from each shop will be different in colour quality, strength and morbidity, there is a possible chance that the shops may contain several similar wools, and that some of these similar wools may come together in the same parcel.
If six parcels are made up from wools taken at haphazard from Shop I and Shop II, the chances are that most of the parcels will be inharmonious and discordant in themselves, and also disparate from one another, because we have seen that the supplies of wool in each shop are similar only in regard to a few wools. But it is also possible that one or perhaps two out of the parcels may by chance contain wools which are common to both shops. In which case, despite the haphazard blending, and the different supplies in each shop, a parcel will be produced which will be oddly harmonious, and more attractive than the other parcels. If, however, the similar wools which come together in a parcel happen to be the diseased, infected, or unsound wools in each shop, the parcel will be unlike the other parcels in view of its extreme morbidity.
As the coming together of similar wools from each shop in haphazard parcelling (random-breeding) is much less common than the joining of dissimilar wools, we must regard the production of a harmonious or of an extremely morbid parcel as less frequent in haphazard parcelling, than the production of a discordant or inharmonious parcel. For what usually happens is that when morbid wools from each shop come together they are morbid in a different way, so that not 100 per cent of one kind, but 50 per cent of two or more kinds of morbidity appears in each parcel.
It should, however, be remembered that when hundreds of thousands of such parcels with only 50 per cent of various kinds of morbidity are annually sent out into the world, the world gradually gets stocked with parcels containing latent morbidity, and that if these parcels are combined to produce fresh parcels, the 50 per cent may easily be made up to 100 per cent. 1
If we imagine the six parcels as children of the same parents, we can now understand how, in the same family, in a random-
1 See Dr. F. A. E. Crew (M.L., p. 388): "It is not known how widespread such recessive genes [determiners or morbidity in this context] are, but the fact that defective individuals appear in certain communities may be interpreted as meaning that individuals carrying the same gene have at last mated."
bred stock, one child will be extremely harmonious and better looking than its brothers and sisters, or even than either of its parents, another child quite unattractive, and another child, or two, delicate or actually diseased.
There is no space to enter into the question of dominants and recessives, 1 except to say that, if in some section of each of the six parcels of wool, some colour, or other quality, dominates over others so as to supersede without destroying them, the reader will perceive what happens when a dominant — say, brown — occurs. In that case the parcel, in one of its sections, will appear all brown. But the blue and red in that section are not destroyed. They are merely recessive. And if the parcel containing dominant brown is used for a further series of parcels, the blue and red will reappear in the section concerned.
Thus a child in a family of six, both parents of which have brown eyes, may have blue eyes. On enquiry, however, it will be found that blue was a recessive factor in each or one of the parents, each or one of them having had parents or grandparents with blue eyes.
In this way recessive morbid factors also pass from one generation to another, unobserved, unmanifested; but they suddenly turn up and cause consternation to those concerned.
Thus mixed breeding in random-bred stocks such as those composing the populations of modern civilized countries, has three principal results:—
(1) It may, by a stroke of pure luck, produce a new individual who is harmonious and symmetrical, with bodily parts proportionately correlated, and who is free from morbid factors, or possesses them only in innocuous, fractional proportions, or as recessives.
(2) It may, and usually does, produce an individual who is inharmonious and discordant, that is to say, who presents an asymmetrical whole, with bodily parts disproportionately correlated, and who has some morbid traits sufficiently pronounced to be displayed.
(3) And, by the same chance conjunction which produced (1) it may produce an unlucky individual, with a grave state of disharmony, showing itself in ugliness, mal-co-ordination and
1 In a book intended for the ordinary reader, it was not thought necessary to give more than a popular summary of the facts about breeding, or to enter narrowly into Mendel's laws. These can be studied in easily accessible popular works, and I recommend Dr. Crew's HEREDITY, or Dr. J. B. Rice's RACIAL HYGIENE.
dysfunction, and with an acutely grave correlation of morbid factors.
Even the lucky individual, however, who looks healthy, sound, and handsome in a random-bred stock, bears in his hereditary equipment the deleterious elements common to his parental stocks, which produced his less fortunate brothers. This explains why, in a random-bred stock, children are often so unaccountably inferior, and sometimes so unaccountably superior to their parents. In fact it explains all the anomalies which the opponents of the hereditary principle habitually advance as arguments against it, and which are thus seen to be no arguments against it at all.
There is, therefore, no certainty of reckoning with random-bred stocks, and it is all-important to remember that in such stocks, in which the germ-plasm (i.e. the hereditary equipment of the stock) is not stabilized, it is not safe to judge by appearances, especially in the case of an individual who is an exception, as regards vigour, beauty, or intelligence, in his stock or family. 1
This is, of course, also true of the so-called geniuses that sometimes arise in mixed random-bred stocks. They too are just lucky strokes which it would be ridiculous to hope to see repeated, for how could they breed true? The fact that Marcus Aurelius and Napoleon had no geniuses as sons is thus seen to be (quite apart from the mate in each case, who may have been unsuitable) no argument against, but rather in favour of, the hereditary principle. 2
Now what happens if we inbreed from stocks hitherto random-bred?
If instead of taking a male and a female from different families in a mixed random-bred stock, we take, say, brother and sister, mother and son, or father and daughter, we may picture the conjunction of their two germ-cells as an intermingling of portions of a supply of wool from only one shop; and we must imagine the supply of wools in the one shop as being divided into two halves, one half on one side of the shop and one half on the other; and each half of the stock as containing wools represented in the other half.
1 H., p. 63: "Another lesson that is to be learned from the facts of inheritance is that appearance alone is not a reliable guide to breeding ability and that a more certain method . . . is the progeny test." I think if Dr. Crew had inserted the words "in random-bred stocks", after the word "alone" he would have been more correct.
2 See infra, p. 113 et seq.
If, therefore, six parcels of wool are now made up of wools drawn in equal parts from both sides of the shop, it is obvious that the chances of similar wools coming together in one parcel are now much higher than in the case of the two separate shops previously considered. And this will be true not only of wools similar for good qualities and colour, but also for wools similar for morbid or lethal qualities. The more morbid or lethal wools there are in the shop, the higher will be the proportion of parcels with morbid elements. Moreover, as in this higher proportion the parcels are likely to have high percentages of morbidity, they will display acute degenerative signs. Either they will be so bad as to make it impossible to prepare a second series of fresh parcels from them, or if they are just sound enough for this to be done, the probability is that this third series of parcels will be too bad any longer to serve as stock for a further series of parcels.
Thus a rapid elimination of the unsound and morbid parcels takes place, 1 and the stock of wools, though very much reduced, is speedily cleansed of morbid elements. 2
Meanwhile, some highly harmonious parcels will have been produced, from which a further series of harmonious parcels can be combined and recombined. This process will tend to increase; for, as fast as the morbid elements concentrate in particular parcels and are sacrificed, the morbid wools available for fresh parcels are naturally reduced until they completely disappear.
Pari passu with this process of eliminating morbidity, all the parcels in the second, third and fourth series have, in this arrangement and quality of wools quickly become more and more alike, so that at every reshuffle it is more easy to stake on the product of any two parcels being like its parent parcels. 3 The parcels, in fact, become "homozygous" (i.e. having a like hereditary equipment), and can be relied upon to produce parcels like themselves. In a word, they breed true. 4 They are, therefore, in many important respects, quite unlike the parcels made tip
1 B.F.L., p. 109. "Inbreeding and reproduction from individuals who are closely akin favours the mendelising out of recessive developmental defects."
2 O.I.I.M., p. 97. "Inbreeding will purify a stock, but the process may be expensive." See also H., p. 61: "Inbreeding thus purifies a stock."
3 H., p. 65: "Inbreeding leads to a rapid increase in homozygosity, and when this state is reached, stability and uniformity will be reached."
4 H., p. 66: "Such individuals as have been made homozygous for the desirable characters will be far more valuable material in the hands of the breeder than the stock with which he started, for, in virtue of their hereditary constitution, they must now breed true for this character."
from the two different shops first considered, which in the language of genetics are called "heterozygous" (i.e. having different hereditary equipment), and it is essential to remember that this unlikeness is above all noticeable in the absence of recessive or any other kind of deleterious factors, which have all been mendelized out. As humans, they would therefore have become homozygous and stabilized, and we could begin to calculate with a considerable amount of certainty upon their offspring. 1
If then we continue to inbreed from them, we may do so quite safely, because the chances of morbid or lethal factors coming together in the offspring in any high percentage have now been removed. The stock is in fact pure and will breed true. 2
Beauty is likely to have increased, because, as we shall see presently, it is largely dependent on harmony; health is likely to have increased, because, in addition to the elimination of morbidity-determining factors, dysfunction, as we shall also see, will have been avoided by an increased correlation between the parts of the body; and appearance will become reliable as a measure of hereditary potentialities in germ-plasm, because the germ-plasm of the stock will have become stabilized.
Thus, although in the early stages of close inbreeding from a stock hitherto random-bred, a great number of casualties are produced by concentrating the deleterious factors in the stock, it should not be forgotten that a parallel concentration of the finer qualities of the stock takes place in other individuals, and that when once the deleterious factors have been mendelized out, the stock is purified; whereas in cross, or out-breeding, if a rapid production of casualties is avoided, it is only by covering up morbid factors and spreading them further afield.
It is now established, in fact, that consanguinity in itself is not a bar to mating. 3 If inbreeding results in disappointment it is not the method of mating that has created the taints revealed.
1 Buchanan Smith (op. cit., p. 194). "The primary effect of inbreeding is merely the creation of homozygosity . . . inbreeding per se is merely the stabilisation of the germ plasm.
2 R.H., p. 157. "Where no morbid variations exist, as in the case of old well-adapted families which tor several generations have been clear of defect consanguineous marriages may he practised with no bad effect. Indeed they tend to accumulate homogeneous determiners in the germ-plasm, and so families which are thoroughly healthy in all their members may practise consanguinity with advantage since each new union will result in the accumulation of favourable combinations."
3 H., p. 66.
The taints have merely been revealed owing to the concentration that occurs in inbreeding. 1
This, roughly, is what science has to say about the two methods of breeding. 2
It was all perfectly plain and could have been inferred sixty years ago from the facts of animal and human life.
What about the actual practice of Nature and the breeder of animals?
In the first place, we know that "the closest inbreeding occurs in plants, in which the egg-cells are fertilized by pollen cells produced by the same individual." 3
The common blue violet, 4 garden beans, the many species of the small evening primrose, are examples of such plants. While "the small-flowered Oenotheres are much more widespread in their wild condition in N. America than the large-flowered forms which are open pollinated, and hence have greater chances for crossing. The former have been more successful in an evolutionary way, despite their self-pollination." 5 Darwin tells us, "there exist, however, some plants which, under their natural conditions appear to be always self-fertilized, such as the Bee Ophrys (Ophrys apifera) and a few other Orchids; yet these plants exhibit the plainest adaptations for cross-fertilization. Again, some few plants are believed to produce only closed flowers, called cleistogene, which cannot possibly be crossed." 6
"Self-pollination is also the rule in wheat, oats, and the majority of the other cereal crops," says Professor Castle, "the most important economically of cultivated plants." 7
And the process cannot be attended by any recognizable ill-effects, otherwise these plants would not be with us to-day.
1 O.I.I.M., p. 97. "Inbreeding is only disastrous if the ingredients of disaster are already in the stock."
2 There was no need to burden these pages with a more elaborate statement. Those who feel the need of the latter are referred to the literature quoted in this and the following chapter.
3 W. E. Castle: GENETICS AND EUGENICS (Camb., Mass., 1916, p. 219).
4 R.H., p. 52. "There are plants which are definitely arranged so as to prevent cross-pollination and to make self-pollination not only possible, but certain. The common blue violet is such a plant, and there are many others."
5 H.E., p. 206.
6 V.A.P.U.D., II, p. 69. The fact that the species to which Bee Ophrys belongs is one in which self-fertilization prevails, and is of a very prolific character, seems incompatible with the belief that self-fertilization is an unnatural or vicious form of propagation. (See William Adam, FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW, No. 12, Nov. 1st, 1865, p. 723.)
7 Op. cit., p. 220.
Turning now to animals, we find in them no instinctive safeguard against incestuous mating. 1 If there is any instinct at all, it is, as Ernest Crawley hints, one that directs the animal to the closest consanguineous matings. 2
As Dr. Briffault tells us, "reproduction without any regard to relationship takes place habitually in animal species, such as rats, rabbits, and other rodents, which by their fertility and vitality have become obnoxious as vermin." 3
On the authority of P. L. Sclater and O. Thomas, Brehm-Strassen and D. C. F. Macdonald and others, he also says that many animals appear to propagate exclusively by what we should term the closest incestuous unions. "Thus the African reedbuck usually brings forth two young at a birth, a male and a female; these, when they become mature, pair with one another, and the race is thus perpetuated by the union of brothers and sisters. The same appears to be true of most of the smaller species of antelopes. It is also the invariable rule among red-deer." 4
"At Fitzroy (Falkland Isles), near Mare and Island harbours, is . . . a herd of guanaco," Mr. Huth tells us, "numbering some twenty individuals, all sprung from a couple brought over as a present to the governor." Given to a Captain Packe, he "removed them to the neighbourhood of Fitzroy, where through necessarily breeding in-and-in, they have thriven and multiplied." 5
The herds of magnificent cattle in the Falkland Isles are all descended from a few introduced there from La Plata about a hundred and thirty years ago, and Darwin tells us they have been noticed to break up into smaller herds of different colours, which breed at different times of the year, and thus intensify the in-and-inbreeding out of which the whole herd originally sprang. 6
After enumerating a number of cases of close consanguineous mating in cattle, sheep, and antelopes, Darwin says: "Almost all the animals as yet mentioned are gregarious, and the males most frequently pair with their own daughters, for they expel the young males as well as all intruders, until forced by old age and loss of strength to yield to some stronger male." 7
1 R.H., p. 153. "Animals have no instincts tending to prevent inbreeding."
2 C.M.R., p. 412.
3 MO., I, p. 204.
4 MO., I, p. 205.
5 THE MARRIAGE OF NEAR KIN (2nd Ed., 1887, p. 265).
6 V.A.P.U.D., II, p. 80. Also p. 99, where, of the deer in English parks, Darwin says: "Mr. Shirley, who has carefully studied the management of deer, admits that in some parks there was no admittance of foreign blood from a time beyond the memory of man."
7 Ibid., p. 102.
I am giving only the briefest selection of examples from authoritative investigators; but it would be easy to extend it considerably. Exigencies of space forbid more than a mere reference to such races of animals as the ponies of Shetland, the cattle of Guernsey and Jersey, the goats of Angora, and various breeds of dogs which, as Dr. C. Kronacher points out, have for a more or less long period of time been driven to the closest consanguineous unions and survived them without deleterious effects. 1
According to A. C. Brehm, 2 the nature of the troop or horde among monkeys makes constant matings between the head of the horde and his daughters, sisters and other close relatives, wholly inevitable; in fact, among all polygamous animals, whether gorilla, wild boar, or elephant, the leading male must enjoy the favours of his daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters, as long as he is able to keep other males away. Nor, as Mr. Huth points out, does the incest cease, when the old male is at last turned out; because the first in the field will most probably be his own sons or grandsons. 3
A new and recently authenticated case of naturally determined incest was discovered by the British Museum Expedition to the Gobi Desert in 1929, when a bird, the Eoörnis Pterovelox Gobiensis was found, which hatches twins at birth, a male and a female, and these same individuals later mate and are monogamous. 4
We also know of the rabbits of Australia, the pigs of New Zealand, and the cattle of South America — all offspring of a few individuals let loose on the soil. According to W. Hornady, a classical example of a huge stock of animals bred from only three ancestors is afforded by the red deer of New Zealand. The original three specimens were introduced from England in 1864, and only ten years ago the herd numbered five thousand. Yet they show no signs of disease, but are indeed superior in vigour and constitution to the original parent stock. 5
1 DER HEUTIGE STAND DER INZUCHTFRAGE (ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR TIERZÜCHTUNG UND ZÜCHTUNGSBIOLOGIE, Band II, Heft I, Berlin, Sept., 1924, p. 3).
2 THIERLEBEN (1876, I, p. 48). Brehm, it should be remembered, actually kept monkeys.
3 Op. cit., pp. 9–10.
4 QUARTERLY REVIEW OF BIOLOGY. See also Dr. Emile Laurent: MARIAGES CONSANGUINS ET DÉGÉNÉRESCENCES (Paris, 1895, p. 19), for a remarkable instance of close inbreeding of sheep in the flock at Mauchamp in Le Cher, which was wholly successful.
5 Kronacher (op. cit., p. 4).
Most of these facts were known to Darwin, and one or two have actually been taken from him.
And what do experienced breeders do?
Here the evidence conclusively points to the best results being obtained from the closest inbreeding.
But, just as in Nature, natural selection eliminates individuals which are the outcome of two polluted streams becoming confluent in consanguineous unions, so the wise breeder, who imitates Natures way, carefully weeds out unhappy specimens and carries on his inbreeding with constant selection.
For as we have seen, if morbid or deleterious factors still exist in a stock's germ-plasm, and they come together from both parents in incestuous breeding, then, instead of a confluence of two pure streams, leading to enhanced health, beauty and vigour, a confluence of impure streams occurs, which, of course, results in a stream doubly contaminated.
It is, however, remarkable that, owing to the ethico-theological superstition against inbreeding and incest, bad and ignorant breeders have until recently always ascribed to close inbreeding per se, and not to the pollution of the confluent streams, the bad results of their methods — so much so, indeed, that not only Darwin, who consulted many such ignorant breeders, but also countless other authorities, take it for granted that inbreeding in itself must be bad, particularly as it was forbidden by the table of affinities.
Settegast in 1868 in Germany took an even stronger stand than Darwin against inbreeding, with the result, as Kronacher shows, that for several decades nobody ever accomplished anything notable in the breeding of cattle or horses in Germany. 1 And it was only when Dr. de Chapeaurouge reversed Settegast's theological prejudices that Germany began once again to produce reputable strains of animals.
Paying no heed to the theorists, however, knowledgeable breeders all over the world have from time immemorial always practised inbreeding, accompanied by careful selection.
"One of the stock arguments used against inbreeding," says C. A. House, "is that under its influence stamina deteriorates. It is not so; nowhere is stamina required more than in the Homing Pigeon, and in no branch of the Fancy is in-breeding more practically and closely followed than in dealing with homing pigeons." 2
1 Op. cit., pp. 1–2.
2 INBREEDING (London, 1920, p. 6).
As long ago as 1825, Mr. N. H. Smith, a famous breeder, long resident among the Arabs, wrote: "I cannot say how often an incestuous breed may be carried on before degeneracy occurs, as I am not aware of that being the case in any instance, and experience is in favour of breeding from son and mother, father and daughter." 1
And it is this incestuous stock that has given our racehorses some of their finest qualities.
The Clydesdale breed of horses, as Mr. A. Calder shows, is also closely inbred. Their homozygosity "relative to the condition existing in the foundation stock, has been increased by 6.2 per cent due to inbreeding alone." 2 And Mr. House says: "From 80 to 90 per cent of the horses registered in recent volumes of the Shire Stud Book go back within half-a-dozen generations in direct line to three stallions living from thirty to forty years ago. These are Lincolnshire Lad, William the Conqueror and Matchless." 3
Writing of the famous royal Austrian breed of horses at Kladrub, Kronacher says: "They have been more or less closely inbred for about a century, and in spite of what many have said they display no signs either of physiological or morphological degeneration." 4
Among dog-breeders. Dr. de Chapeaurouge produced a closely inbred stock of pugs with complete success. 5 N. H. Gentry reports from America a successfully inbred stock of Berkshire pigs, while a Dutch landowner recently reared a stock of middle white breed without any evil effects from one imported boar and two sows. 6 Dr. Kronacher himself, starting with one male and three females (a mother and two daughters) bred a stock of ordinary goats in and in for eight generations, with no loss of size, physical development, milking capacity, or vitality. Indeed, their fertility tended to increase. And he declares that in this case he practised no selection whatsoever. 7
1 Huth (op. cit., p. 266).
2 THE ROLE OF INBREEDING IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CLYDESDALE BREED OF HORSES (Proc. of the Royal Soc. of Edinburgh, XLVII, 1927, p. 139).
3 Ibid., p. 24.
4 Op. cit., p. 3.
5 Ibid., p. 4.
6 Ibid., p. 2
7 Ibid., pp. 5, 10, and 21. Kronacher explains his success with goats as follows (p. 21): Bei den Ziegen handelte es sich um einen aus zwei nicht weit von einander entfernten Gehöften in etwas ablegender Gegend entnommenen Stamm ganz gewöhnlicher, gehörnter Landziegen. In solchen Verhältnissen ist und war die Inzucht meist seit langem etwas Gewöhnliches und der Bock wurde vielfach aus der Nachzucht im Stalle des Bockhalters selbst entnommen." Thus the deleterious elements in the germ-plasm of this goat family were probably mendelized out before the experiment started.
Scores of other cases could be quoted of sheep, rabbits, canaries, poultry 1 and other animals. But in cattle the success of close inbreeding has been so startling that Darwin felt compelled to suggest that some exception to Nature's law against incest must have been made in their favour! 2
Prejudice could hardly go further!
"Could I give my readers," says Mr. House, "a few pedigrees of Jersey cattle, they would be astounded to find how closely inbred are all the great milking families. Yet we are told inbreeding causes loss of stamina. If it were so, the Jersey cattle as a distinct breed would have been wiped out long ago, for no fresh blood is ever introduced into the island of Jersey. The reason why? — To keep the breed pure and free from any alien taint." 3
All successful breeders of Hereford cattle have also been advocates of this system. The famous cow Restless came of the most persistent inbreeding. The bull Bolingbroke, with his half-sister Phoenix, produced the bull Favourite. Favourite with his mother produced the cow Young Phoenix, a celebrated animal. With his daughter. Favourite then produced the famous bull Comet. He was thereupon put to his daughter's daughter, and again to his daughter's daughter's daughter. The produce of this last union had 93.75 per cent of Favourite's blood in her, and was put to the bull Wellington, who had 61.5 per cent of Favourite's blood. This union produced Clarissa, an admirable cow, who with the bull Lancaster, who had 68.75 per cent of Favourite's blood in his veins, produced the celebrated cow Restless. 4
1 Mr. Thomas Nesbit, of North Broomhill, Northumberland, writes to me about the fighting cocks his father once bred, as follows: "These fanciers, such as father, did not believe in out-crossing. The Americans, in contrast to this old English idea, believed in out-crossing. Father's experience is that the best you can do for the game bird breed is to bring it back to its own blood. In cases where you have an out-cross — i.e. two unrelated strains of pure breed breeding — father believes in putting the young cock back to his mother, or the full sisters to the mother. The hens of such breeding he recommends to be put back to the father or the full brothers of the father. This is, of course, only providing the breed is pure . . . inbreeding must be free from taint of any kind. When taint is known to exist you further intensify it by inbreeding." (July 10th, 1933.)
2 V.A.P.U.D., p. 102.
3 Op. cit., p. 26.
4 House (op. cit., p. 27). See also M.O.C., p. 464.
Such was the practice of Nature and experienced breeders when Darwin wrote the first authoritative book on breeding. And yet, so great was the ethico-religious bias at the time, that although he recognized crossing as a cause of degeneracy, he, together with other honest men, like Weissmann, Crampe, Ritzema Bos, Fabre and von Gaiata, concluded that too close consanguinity must be bad in itself, and lead to weakness, sterility and greater susceptibility to disease.
Overlooking much of what experienced breeders did and said, and all the historical and anthropological evidence available at that time, these scientists seemed not only to have been blinded to everything by the cases in which inbreeding with tainted stocks had, of course, led to bad results, but also performed experiments of their own which, astonishing as it may seem, without exception proved that inbreeding was harmful.
These experiments ended about 1900. They closed, as it were, the Dark Age of English history, and left Darwin's findings confirmed. These were:—
(a) That the consequences of close inbreeding are, as is generally believed, loss of size, constitutional vigour and fertility.
(b) That it is a great law of Nature that the crossing of animals and plants not closely related is highly beneficial and even necessary. 1
More recently, however, these conclusions began to be doubted. The work was taken up afresh, and in 1916 Professor Castle published the results of his experiments.
With his pupils he had successfully bred a small fly, Drosophila, brother and sister for 59 generations in succession, "without obtaining any diminution in either the vigour or the fecundity of the race." 2
1 An able writer on MARRIAGES AND CONSANGUINITY in the WESTMINSTER REVIEW (July, 1863) called Darwin's attention to the inconsistencies in this conclusion. Darwin wrote THE VARIOUS CONTRIVANCES BY WHICH ORCHIDS ARE FERTILIZED BY INSECTS in order to substantiate conclusion (b); but as the able WESTMINSTER REVIEW writer points out (p. 105): "When we come to look into the argument more closely, the first tincture of distrust is imparted to our minds by the fact that, after all, it is but an argument from final causes," etc. He then suggests an alternative theory which would equally account for Darwin's facts, and points out that Darwin's inferences are from the exception, not the rule. The article should be read in extenso, especially the facts of Hallett's inbreeding with wheat for five generations. "The length of the ears was doubled, their contents nearly trebled, and the tillering power of the seed increased fourfold" (p. 107) In the 2nd Ed. of Darwin's ORCHIDS (1877) there is no satisfactory reply to this WESTMINSTER REVIEW article.
2 Castle (op. cit., 221).
Moenkhaus inbred the same species for 75 generations, crossing brother and sister, "and found that the fertility could be either increased or decreased by selection. He got no bad results." 1 Hyde and Schultze achieved similar results with mice. Coperman and his assistants also obtained similar results with mice. Castle worked with rats, and Popenoe with guinea-pigs, and both reported complete freedom from any evil effects of inbreeding per se. 2
Dr. H. D. King, in America, experimented with white rats, mating brother and sister successively for 25 generations, and among the offspring of this inbred stock, rats were obtained which proved actually superior to the stock rats from which they had started. The males were 15 per cent heavier, and the females 3 per cent, while the fertility was nearly 8 per cent higher. 3 In the seventh generation of this incestuously inbred stock the largest albino rat ever bred was obtained. 4
Commenting on these experiments. Dr. Rice says: "[These] results lead to the very definite suspicion that the earlier investigators unconsciously selected animals in such a way as to lead to the diminished fertility or vitality, or else were using defective strains for their experiment." 5
What then is the position now?
"If undesirable characters are shown after inbreeding," say E. M. East and D. F. Jones, "it is only because they already existed in the stock. . . . If evil is brought to light, inbreeding is no more to be blamed than the detective who unearths a crime. Instead of being condemned it should be commended." 6
"The records of the breeds of domesticated animals," says Dr. Crew, of Edinburgh, "show that close inbreeding of sound stock, if associated with intelligent elimination of the weakly and abnormal, can be practised for many generations without any undesirable consequences. They show, in fact, that some degree
1 R.H., p. 153. See also Federley, DAS INZUCHTPROBLEM (Berlin, 1927, p. 13).
2 Federley (pp. 13, 14).
3 Ibid. (pp. 9, 10). Castle (p. 221).
4 Kronacher (op. cit., p. 5), who points out that Dr. King started experimenting with rats slightly sub-normal in size.
5 R.H., pp. 153–154, and O.I.I.M., p. 94, where Crew says almost the same thing, and concludes that the deleterious results of the previous work "must not be ascribed to the system of mating employed, but to other causes."
6 INBREEDING AND OUTBREEDING (London, 1919, p. 139). See also R.H., p. 156. "The type of defect is not determined by the inbreeding, but rather by the inherent defect of the original germ-plasm which has been allowed to come out when inbreeding has been practised."
of 'narrow' breeding is essential for progressive and permanent improvement leading to the production of a uniform and true-breeding stock." 1
"Continued crossing," says Professor Castle, "only tends to hide inherent defects, not to exterminate them; and inbreeding only tends to bring them to the surface, not to create them." 2 "If inbreeding exposes the undesirable," says Dr. Crew, "it equally thoroughly emphasizes the desirable, and the desirable will breed true when complete homozygosis in respect of the. characters is obtained." 3
"The healthy offspring of parents who are related have therefore far better hereditary prospects," says Dr. Fritz Lenz, "than the offspring of unrelated parents. There is no such thing as degeneracy, in the sense of a sudden and new appearance of morbid hereditary tendencies, due to inbreeding." 4
"En realité," le Gendre concludes, "la consanguinité exalte les tares héréditaires, mais ne les crée pas." 5
All inbreeding, however, to be successful, must be attended with the most ruthless selection.
In G. M. Rommel's experiment, for instance, thirty-three pairs of guinea-pigs were taken at haphazard and inbred. Pronounced defects in the form of infertility and decline in vigour became apparent in the resulting stocks, although the various families differed in this respect. At all events, in the twentieth generation of brother and sister matings, only sixteen of the thirty-three families survived; but these were superior to the original stock. 6
As a free-lance scientist of long standing in this matter, I therefore suggest the following provisional description of the effects of inbreeding and out- or cross-breeding respectively:—
Inbreeding canalizes and isolates health and other desirable qualities, just as it canalizes and isolates ill-health and other undesirable qualities. It stabilizes the germ-plasm, and this causes hereditary factors to be calculable. It therefore makes appearance
1 O.I.I.M., p. 93.
2 Op. cit., p. 224.
3 O.I.I.M., p. 99.
4 M.A.R., p. 471. See also M.O.C., p. 465.
5 R.H., p. 156. See also p. 154. And also Crew (H., p. 65), "It is now established that the effects of inbreeding depend not upon any pernicious attribute of this system of mating, but upon the hereditary conditions of the individuals involved."
6 Kronacher (op. cit., p. 5).
a guide to the individual's hereditary equipment. That it acts as a purifier of a stock or family is implicit in the opening sentence. Out- or cross-breeding conceals and therefore spreads ill-health and all qualities, desirable or undesirable, diluting and mixing them. It thus contaminates desirable stocks, but also tends to improve poor and degenerate stocks at the expense of sound stocks. As it renders the germ-plasm unstable it makes all calculations of hereditary factors impossible, and turns appearance simply into a snare and a mask.
* * * * * * *
All these conclusions apply equally to Man and beast; but I shall now deal especially with the historical aspects of inbreeding in so far as Man is concerned.
I need not repeat what I said at the opening about Reibmayr's claims regarding the segregating instincts of cultivated human stocks. What interests us more now is to see how far these endogamic instincts led, in the peoples to whom we owe civilization, to intensive inbreeding within certain groups.
In ancient Egypt, in addition to the national endogamy, which forbade mixing with the foreigner, incestuous unions prevailed both among the common people and among the ruler groups. Diodorus tells us, "It was a law . . . in Egypt, against the custom of all other nations, that brothers and sisters might marry with one another." 1
Philo, who was himself a native of Alexandria, writes: "The lawgiver of the Egyptians, ridiculing, etc. . . . and permitting men fearlessly and with impunity to marry all their sisters, whether by both parents, or by one. . . ." 2
G. Maspero, in the ANNUAIRE DE L'ÉCOLE PRATIQUE DES HAUTES ÉTUDES, says of the ancient Egyptians: "Marriage between brother and sister was the marriage most in vogue, and it acquired an odour of the utmost sanctity when the brother and sister contracting it were themselves born of a brother and sister who were likewise the issue of a union the same as theirs." 3 The same author, in his translation of an ancient Egyptian papyrus, shows that even among the common people the custom
1 HISTORICAL LIBRARY, I, ii. (Trans. by G. Booth. London, 1700.)
2 A TREATISE ON THOSE SPECIAL LAWS WHICH ARE REFERABLE TO TWO COMMANDMENTS IN THE DECALOGUE, the 6th and 7th. (Trans. by C. D. Yonge, M.A. London, 1855, III, c. IV.)
3 JOURN. OF HELLENIC STUDIES, VIII, p. 244. (Miss R. E. White on Woman in Ptolemaic Egypt).
must have been prevalent, and in his foot-note to the relevant passage, repeats in other words what I have quoted above. 1
Sir Marc Armand Ruffer, C.M.G., mentions the Amherst papyrus as being also a proof of brother and sister marriages among the common people in ancient Egypt, and maintains quite correctly that this custom lasted into late Roman times, seeing that in the reign of the Emperor Commodus two-thirds of the citizens of Arsinoë were said to have married their sisters. 2 Dr. J. Nietzold certainly supports the view that such marriages. were common in Ptolemaic and Roman times, 3 while J. G. Wilkinson makes it plain that these incestuous marriages were by no means confined to the ruling dynasties. 4 And Sir James Frazer, who may be relied upon to have sifted the evidence carefully, says: "The evidence of legal documents, including marriage contracts, tends to prove that such unions were the rule, not the exception, in Egypt. . . . Nor did the principle apply only to gods and kings. The common people acted on it in their daily life." 5
Commenting on these facts. Sir Armand Ruffer says: "As consanguineous unions were so common, the evil results should have been numerous and have attracted popular notice. Yet, as far as I know, no such observations are recorded in Egyptian literature." 6
With regard to the Pharaohs, the facts are more generally known, and have been so for some time. It is indeed established that from the earliest times they married their sisters if they could. Speaking of the wife of the Pharaoh, G. Maspero says:—
"She was only rarely a stranger. Almost invariably she was a princess born in the purple, a daughter of Ra, and as often as possible the Pharaoh's sister, who . . . more than anyone else
1 LES CONTES POPULAIRES DE L'EGYPTE ANCIENNE (4th Ed., Paris, 1911, p. 129). The passage reads: "Ahuri, notre fille, aime Nenoferkephtah, son frère ainé: marions les ensemble comme c'est la coutume."
2 ON THE PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF CONSANGUINEOUS MARRIAGES IN THE ROYAL FAMILIES OF EGYPT. (Proc. of the Roy. Soc. of Med., 1919. XII. Supplement SECT. HISTORY OF MEDICINE, p. 148).
3 DIE EHE IN AEGYPTEN ZUR PTOLEMÄISCH-RÖMISCHEN ZEIT (Leipsig, 1903, p. 12). On marriage of brother and sister: "Letzteres war enie alte Landessitte . . . offenbar sah man die Geschwisterehe als das natürlichste und Vernünftigste an."
3 Op. cit., I, p. 319. In III, p. 113, the author speaks of "a custom prevalent in Egypt from the earliest to the latest period, which permitted brothers and sisters to marry. . . . Many individuals even among the priesthood of early Pharaonic periods, are found, from the sculptures of Thebes, to have married their sisters."
5 ADONIS, ATTIS, OSIRIS (London, 1914, II, pp. 214–215).
6 Op. cit., p. 148.
on earth was qualified to share her brother's couch and throne." 1
Thus as early as the fourth dynasty, Queen Mirisônkhou, wife of Khephren, was the daughter of Kheops, and thus the sister of her husband. 2 Kings married their sisters in the XIIth, XIIIth and XVIIth dynasties, and in the glorious XVIIIth dynasty, seven of the rulers married their sisters or brothers (one ruler was a female, as we shall see); in the XIXth all but three did so, in the XXth every king did so, and in the XXIst consanguineous marriages were common.
Now I have so constantly found, both in the lecture hall and elsewhere, that thoughtful and otherwise quite honest people are prepared solemnly to declare, for no reason whatsoever, except perhaps the customary ethico-theological prejudice against incest, that all this incestuous mating led to degeneracy in the Pharaohs, that, at the risk of burdening these pages unduly, I feel I must offer an elaborate contradiction of this allegation.
The contradiction should be quite unnecessary. Because, as I have pointed out, if you study the glories of Egypt's thousands of years of civilisation, 3 and grasp that she and probably she alone (certainly she alone according to the diffusionists) 4 was responsible for everything that we have ever known or seen as culture and civilization, how could she possibly have had as rulers a series of families who were not exceptionally wise, tasteful, and above all creative? And how could these rulers themselves have succeeded in inspiring any but a great people? And yet, as we have seen, both rulers and people were almost entirely incestuous.
Let me, however, under the guidance of Breasted and Sir Armand Ruffer, 5 examine the monarchs of two dynasties — the XVIIIth and the Ptolemaic.
The first King of what the well-known Orientalist, Reginald Stuart Poole, calls the "glorious XVIIIth Dynasty" 6 was
1 HlSTOIRE ANCIENNE DES PEUPLES DE L'ORIENT CLASSIQUE (Paris, 1895, I, p. 270).
2 Ibid.
3 Predynastic Egypt, it should be remembered, was flourishing in 4500 B.C. The introduction of the calendar, when the year of 365 days was fixed, took place in 4241 B.C. (the earliest fixed date in history!) — an indication of the degree of civilization already achieved in those early days. See. J. H. Breasted, Ph.D., A HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS (London, 1908).
4 See G. Elliot Smith's IN THE BEGINNING (London, 1932), which gives a brief and able outline of the diffusionist's standpoint.
5 Sir Armand Ruffer prefaces his analysis of the two dynasties in question as follows: "In what follows we shall select for illustration only those families the physical and mental characters of the individuals of which are known." (Op. cit., p. 148).
6 E.B. (11th Ed. Art. EGYPT, p. 83).