Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1878-03-15


years, are honored yet among the fore
most female names of all time, We're growths
of what you call the scrawny, stunted tree
of Judalsm,-the root out of which has
sprung Christianity. Sweet was the root (;
majestic is the tree. My feeling Es that were
you to cut down the tree, and were you to
deracinate that root, there is little philoso-
ply on the globe that could be depended
upon to perpetuate the family.
How can the average ability of the race be
raised by the application of the laws of here
ditary descent?
| In putting this question before YOU, | am
perfectly ..aware that | am venturirg into
chaos, or at least into regions where 1t is diff
tcult to find firm ground on which to put
down the foot. | am not speaking here at
random, but cautiously selecting the few
sound conclusions which science has reached,
and combining them in such manner that
we may see, il our eyes are open, the trend
of investigation on this most blazing Of all
social themes. Milton, you know, sends out
Satan across chaos, and he is to build road
nnder himself he proceeds to the garden
OF Eden. | am on an expedition OF similar
difficulty but of diametrically opposite pur-
pose and direction. Courage, my friends
The road is being built the other way, from
Eden out across chaos into the caverns of the
lost spirits, over the outer works of infamy
|
death Let u.s. standing upon the mighty
parapets of loyalty to natural truth, that is
| to Gods will as revealed in the family, build
| d bridge out from it into the world of lost
spirits, over the chaos, and meet Satan half
way, throttling him backward beyond the
forms of Sin and Death.
l. The best results for the improvement of
the race will be attained by obedience not to
a few. nor to most, but to all of the seven
| Ia, g NAL anl-
lateral co-equal, pre-marital, prenatal, and
initial.
| Here are the seven laws of hereditary de
| see mt and YOU and | cannot vote them up or
down. We may obey them or disobey them,
and if the race Is to he improved by the ap
plication of these laws. the first thing to feel
| sure about is that We must obey, not one of
| them. but all Of them. The trouble with
most reforms of the wild sort is that they are
merely fragmentary attempts at loyalty to
nature. They put into the foreground some
one of these seven principles and not all of
them. Nature reyenges herself always for
any partial loyalty with which We serve her.
.. The law of coequal heredity is the loud
proclamation of monogamy as of natural
that is, of Divine-ordainmen
B. The law of initial heredity has simi-
lar meaning
We are on holy ground. We nay well
pause here to allow our thoughts time TO ex-
press much which ought not to be uttered |
audiby. There is mysterious law by |
which the numbers OF the two portions Of
the human family are preserved in substan-
tial equality. Emigration may change the
proportion of the sexes. 1t is by no means |
denied by me that in some districts of the
world the number of one sex predominant |
over those of the other. But, on the large |
average, in the natural arrangement of things I
there is an astonishing equality preserved be- |
tween these numbers by fixed natural law. |
That significant arrangement | call coequal |
heredi:y. Now, if You admit that marriage |
is a natural state, it is natural for every man
and it follows, therefore, mathematically and
on this topic there is no louder proclamation
in the universe that the law of coequal hered-
ity is the Divine ordainment of monogamy.
by natural law Eden consists OF Adam and
Eve, and not of Adam and two Ewes or
twenty. There has been no departure from
this law Of Paradise since the career of man
opened. The fiat as to coequal heredity ex-
hibited in the earliest historic documents,
certainly has not been changed for six thou
sand years. God has been expressing his
mind as to social arrangements these six
thousand years. From the beginning he has
uttered but one voice. He has always main
tanned the law of coequal heredity, and by it
has maintained the law of monogamy as the
natural, that is. the Divine ideal. defy any
man who reveres the scientic method or
who loves to think boldly, north. south, east
and west, to look into the natural arrange
ments on this topic, and find support fol any
other PARTY than Gods own, as guide for
future civilization. | should be almost will
ing, We're men sure to obey wholly the die
tates of what We call nature, to leave the
justification of monogamy exclusively 10
those who correctly understand coequnl and
initial heredity
Did Shakespeare know of what he was
talking when ne spoke Of the green-eyed
monster called jealousy? Have the poets in
all ages been blind when they have asserted
that there are passions through which the
words mine and thine obtain at times terrific
emphasis inside the range of social and fami-
ly life If the law of coequal heredity pro-
claims monogamy, does that of initial
beredity. If there is to be supreme affec-
ton, there is of course, to be guarding of
1t and II the poets. If the philosophers. if
all who have studied the human heart are
not wrong in assigning TO jealousy force
sufficient to burst social mountains, making
them crack open like much baked clay at
times, in reyulsion after revulsion, if that
power has always been one of the high ex-
plosives in human history, you may put 1t,
too, on the side OF monoganly for there is
where God intended that II force should be
expended
L. The average ability of the race is not
equal to It's present tasks.
Galton says that men III modern times are
in danger OF being drudged into imbecility.
There ~ hardly any ctss OF the advanced In-
tellectual laborers of the world, that does
not need higher grade of ability to meet its
tasks.
3. Whatever light science can throw upon
the methods Of improving the average ability
of the race, consistent with the natural in
stitution of monogaIny, is therefore, needed
and should be diffused.
6. The iatermarriage of highly gifted rela-
tives tends to diminish rather than to in
crease the ability of the race
Neibuhr says that aristocracies, when
obliged to recruit their numbers among them
selves, fall into decay. and often into lnsani-
ty, dementin and imbecility. Who does not
know that this truth might be illustrated 10y
vast ranges of historical knowledge, were
there time here for the presentation of de-
tails The Lngide and Seleucidse for ten
hundred years intermarried, and through
nine hundred yenTs were in process Of mys-
terious decay. Who does not know that it
was the feeling Of many of our Revolution
ary fathers that half the thrones of Europe
were filled by persons more or less cratic on
account OF descending from relatives 1t
was one of the propositions Jefferson often
talked about in private that the thrones of
Europe were filled with lmbeciles. the results
OF consanguineous marriages The rule Of I
the church OF England to day on this topic
is more strict than has been that of some de-
cayed royal houses.
7. The marriage of highly gifted persons
OF different lines Of descent, is Il method of
the upper, but only the upper,
that is the most intellectual and virtuous,
g.lt tlnf. hmm