Excerpt from The Marriage of Near Kin: Considered With Respect to the Law of Nations, the Results of Experience, and the Teachings of BiologyThe first condition is easily secured, because it only requires a little mechanical arrangement, but how are we to know whether a given couple should be allowed to marry or not? Were either insane we should not allow it, because we know that the chances are the progeny would also be insane. If a parent Of either had become insane after marriage then we should not prohibit it, because, though there would be a good chance that insanity was become hereditary in the family, yet there would also be a good chance that the children might escape any hereditary taint, and the risk of prohibition would therefore be too great, we could not, for the sake Of possible good, drive to a positive evil. F or the same reason, or possibly from motives Of humanity, we do not dissolve a sterile marriage as so many nations have done, and still do. The benefit in a great and fertile population would be very doubtful, the evil most assured. And yet we prohibit marriages be tween near kin. Is then the immorality caused by certain Of these prohibitions nothing, and is the gain so very great?About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.