The mixture of the European races, now so marked. has been going on from early prehistoric (Neolithic) times. The French population is highly composite. The Anglo-Saxon race is equally or still more so, and the American peo ple so in a still more marked degree; the inter mixture being the result of emigration from the countries of northern and central Europe. It is not only that the old mixes with new stock, but the latter comes from regions differing in soil, climate, etc. Intermarriages between the stocks or breeds or strains of the white race are happy in their effects, resulting in in creased vigor and fertility; and so with the stocks of the yellow, brown, or black races. The same law prevails throughout the animal world; everywhere Nature abhors too close in breeding.
Interracial Harriage.—Aliscegenation. or 'me tissage,' is marriage between individuals of widely different races—i.e. a high and a low race or variety. Its effects are bad physically and morally, since the product. like mules or hybrids between species, is inferior to the higher though superior to the lower race; the result is that, when general. the higher race is railed down, or tends to degeneracy, while the lower is in a de gree elevated. Hybrids, or half-castes, are no toriously inferior to either pure race, though so partly from social causes. The results, so ap parent in human history, show that crosses are injurious between races too far removed in physical characters and constitution, or where living under remote climatic conditions. While marriages between black or other backward races and white races are markedly evil in their effects, unions between those nearer allied, such as those between the white race and the .1apanese or the Polynesian or \lalaya n or North American Indian, also tend to result in sterility: on the other hand between the yellow and brown races, and the brown and black, are apparently fertile, and the results not harmful.
n-and-in Breeding.—The deleterious effects of self-fertilization. or of marriage between blood relatives, are recognized both by Darwin and by Wallace. Darwin found that certain plants which had been naturally cross-fertilized for many or all previous generations suffered to an extreme degree from a single net of self fertilization. "Nothing of the kind," he adds, "has been observed in our domestic annuals; but then one must remember that the closest possible interbreeding with such animals—that is, brothers and sisters—cannot be con sidered as nearly so close a union as that between the pollen and ovules of the same tlower.•"
cousuuguineous Marriages.—The bearings of the previous statements on this important sub ject are obvious. Yet the matter is involved in doubt, authorities differing. The popular notion is that marriages between first cousins result in disease, idiocy, insanity, sterility, etc. 'That. the results are not, however, always deleterious is a matter of frequent observation. Darwin refers to his son's (G. H. Darwin) attempt to discover by a statistical investigation whether the mar riages of first cousins are at all injurious, "al though this is a degree of relationship which would not be objected to in our domestic ani mals." It appears from these and other re searches that "the evidence as to any evil thus caused is conflicting, but on the whole points to its being very small." He concludes "that with mankind the marriages of nearly related persons. some of whose parents or ancestors had lived very different conditions, would lie nmeh less injurious than that of persons who had always lived in the same place and followed the same habits of life. Nor can I see reason to doubt that the widely different habits of life of men and women in civilized na tions, especially among the upper classes. would tend to counterbalance any evil from marriages between healthy and somewhat closely related persons." Finally, to sum up the results thus far oh tabled, it appears, as concluded by Wallace. that a sight amount of erossing. attended by slight changes of the eonditions of life, is beneficial; while extreme changes and crosses between indi viduals too far removed in structure or eonsti tution are injurious.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Hermann Muller, The Fertiliz'aBibliography. Hermann Muller, The Fertiliz'a- tion of Flowers (Eng. trans. London, 1883) ; Wallace. Darwinism (London, 1S591 ; Darwin, Various Contrira aces by Which Orchids A re Fer tilized. by Insects (2(1 ed., London, 1877); Effects of Cross and Self Fertilization in the Vegetable Kinydom (2d ed., London.lti7S) ;Different FOrM of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species (2d ed., London, 1880) ; Descent of if on (211 ed.. London, 1874) Origin of Flood Struc tures 1893) : Wallace. Malay Archipe lago (New York, 1509) ; Lubbock, British Wild Flowers Consid•rcd in 1:•lation- to Insects (4th ed., London, 1882) ; Grant Allen, On the ('olors. of Flowers (London. 1880) ; !telt. .1 in Nicar«gua (London, 1888) ; Forbes, Nat uralist's Wanderings in the Eastern (New York. 1885).