Essays in War-Time Part 7

[3] Dr. Cabanes (_Indiscretions de l'Histoire_, 3rd series) similarly concludes that, while in temperament Napoleon may be said to belong to the epileptic cla.s.s, he was by no means an epileptic in the ordinary sense. Kanngiesser (_Prager Medizinische Wochenschrift_, 1912, No. 27) suggests that from his slow pulse (40 to 60) Napoleon's attacks may have originated in the heart and vessels.

[4] Genuine epilepsy usually comes on before the age of twenty-five; it very rarely begins after twenty-five, and never after thirty. (L.W.

Weber, _Munchener Medizinische Wochenschrift_, July 30th and Aug. 6th, 1912.) In genuine epilepsy, also, loss of consciousness accompanies the fits; the exceptions to this rule are rare, though Audenino, a pupil of Lombroso, who sought to extend the sphere of epilepsy, believes that the exceptions are not so rare as is commonly supposed (_Archivio di Psichiatria_, fasc. VI., 1906). Moreover, true epilepsy is accompanied by a progressive mental deterioration which terminates in dementia; in the Craig Colony for Epileptics of New York, among 3,000 epileptics this progressive deterioration is very rarely absent (_Lancet_, March 1st, 1913); but it is not found in the distinguished men of genius who are alleged to be epileptic. Epileptic deterioration has been elaborately studied by MacCurdy, _Psychiatric Bulletin_, New York, April, 1916.

[5] See, _e.g._, Elizabeth du Quesne van Gogh, _Personal Recollections of Vincent van Gogh_, p. 46. These epileptic attacks are, however, but vaguely mentioned, and it would seem that they only appeared during the last years of the artist's life.

XIV

THE PRODUCTION OF ABILITY

The growing interest in eugenics, and the world-wide decline in the birth-rate, have drawn attention to the study of the factors which determine the production of genius in particular and high ability in general. The interest in this question, thus freshly revived and made more acute by the results of the Great War, is not indeed new. It is nearly half a century since Galton wrote his famous book on the heredity of genius, or, as he might better have described the object of his investigation, the heredity of ability. At a later date my own _Study of British Genius_ collectively summarised all the biological data available concerning the parentage and birth of the most notable persons born in England, while numerous other studies might also be named.

Such investigations are to-day acquiring a fresh importance, because, while it is becoming realised that we are gaining a new control over the conditions of birth, the production of children has itself gained in importance. The world is no longer bombarded by an exuberant stream of babies, good, bad, and indifferent in quality, with Mankind to look on calmly at the struggle for existence among them. Whether we like it or not, the quant.i.ty is relatively diminis.h.i.+ng, and the question of quality is beginning to a.s.sume a supreme significance. What are the conditions which a.s.sure the finest quality in our children?

A German scientist, Dr. Vaerting, of Berlin, published on the eve of the War a little book on the most favourable age in parents for the production of children of ability (_Das gunstigste elterliche Zeugungsalter_).[1] He approaches the question entirely in this new spirit, not as a merely academic topic of discussion, but as a practical matter of vital importance to the welfare of society. He starts with the a.s.sertion that "our century has been called the century of the child,"[2]

and for the child all manner of rights are now being claimed. But the prime right of all, the right of the child to the best ability that his parents are able to transmit to him, is never even so much as considered.

Yet this right is the root of all children's rights. And when the mysteries of procreation have been so far revealed as to enable this right to be won, we shall, at the same time, Dr. Vaerting adds, renew the spiritual aspect of the nations.

The most easily ascertainable and measurable factor in the production of ability, and certainly a factor which cannot be without significance, is the age of the parents at the child's birth. It is this factor with which Vaerting is mainly concerned, as ill.u.s.trated by over one hundred German men of genius concerning whom he has been able to obtain the required data. Later on, he proposes to extend the inquiry to other nations.

Vaerting finds--and this is probably the most original, though, as we shall see, not the most unquestionable of his findings--that the fathers who are themselves of no notable intellectual distinction have a decidedly more prolonged power of procreating distinguished children than is possessed by distinguished fathers. The former, that is to say, may become the fathers of eminent children from the period of s.e.xual maturity up to the age of forty-three or beyond. When, however, the father is himself of high intellectual distinction, Vaerting finds that he was nearly always under thirty, and usually under twenty-five years of age at his distinguished son's birth, although the proportion of youthful fathers in the general population is relatively small. The eleven youngest fathers on Vaerting's list, from twenty-one to twenty-five years of age, were (with one exception) themselves more or less distinguished, while the fifteen oldest, from thirty-nine to sixty years of age, were all without exception undistinguished. Among these sons are to be found much greater names (Goethe, Bach, Kant, Bismarck, Wagner, etc.) than are to be found among the sons of young and more distinguished fathers, for here there is only one name (Frederick the Great) of the same calibre. The elderly fathers belonged to large cities and were mostly married to wives very much younger than themselves. Vaerting notes that the most eminent geniuses have most frequently been the sons of fathers who were not engaged in intellectual avocations at all, but earned their livings as simple craftsmen. He draws the conclusion from these data that strenuous intellectual energy is much more unfavourable than hard physical labour to the production of ability in the offspring. Intellectual workers, therefore, he argues, must have their children when young, and we must so modify our social ideals and economic conditions as to render this possible. That the mother should be equally young is not, he holds, necessary; he finds some superiority, indeed, provided the father is young, in somewhat elderly mothers, and there were no mothers under twenty-three. The rarity of genius among the offspring of distinguished parents is attributed to the unfortunate tendency to marry too late, and Vaerting finds that the distinguished men who marry late rarely have any children at all. Speaking generally, and apart from the production of genius, he holds that women have children too early, before their psychic development is completed, while men have children too late, when they have already "in the years of their highest psychic generative fitness planted their most precious seed in the mud of the street."

The eldest child was found to have by far the best chance of turning out distinguished, and in this fact Vaerting finds further proof of his argument. The third son has the next best chance, and then the second, the comparatively bad position of the second being attributed to the too brief interval which often follows the birth of the first child. He also notes that of all the professions the clergy come beyond comparison first as the parents of distinguished sons (who are, however, rarely of the highest degree of eminence), lawyers following, while officers in the army and physicians scarcely figure at all.

Vaerting is inclined to see in this order, especially in the predominance of the clergy, the favourable influence of an unexhausted reserve of energy and a habit of chast.i.ty on intellectual procreativeness. This is one of his main conclusions.

It so happens that in my own _Study of British Genius_, with which Dr.

Vaerting was unacquainted when he made his first investigation, I dealt on a larger scale, and perhaps with somewhat more precise method, with many of these same questions as they are ill.u.s.trated by English genius.

Vaerting's results have induced me to re-examine and to some extent to manipulate afresh the English data. My results, like Dr. Vaerting's, showed a special tendency for genius to appear in the eldest child, though there was no indication of notably early marriage in the parents.[3] I also found a similar predominance of the clergy among the fathers and a similar deficiency of army officers and physicians. The most frequent age of the father was thirty-two years, but the average age of the father at the distinguished child's birth was 36.6 years, and when the fathers were themselves distinguished their age was not, as Vaerting found in Germany, notably low at the birth of their distinguished sons, but higher than the general average, being 37.5 years. There have been fifteen distinguished English sons of distinguished fathers, but instead of being nearly always under thirty and usually under twenty-five, as Vaerting found in Germany, the English distinguished father has only five times been under thirty and among these five only twice under twenty-five. Moreover, precisely the most distinguished of the sons (Francis Bacon and William Pitt) had the oldest fathers and the least distinguished sons the youngest fathers.

I made some attempt to ascertain whether different kinds of genius tend to be produced by fathers who were at different periods of life.

I refrained from publis.h.i.+ng the results as I doubted whether the numbers dealt with were sufficiently large to carry any weight. It may, however, be worth while to record them, as possibly they are significant. I made four cla.s.ses of men of genius: (1) Men of Religion, (2) Poets, (3) Practical Men, and (4) Scientific Men and Sceptics. (It must not, of course, be supposed that in this last group all the scientific men were sceptics, or all the sceptics scientific.) The average age of the fathers at the distinguished son's birth was, in the first group, 35 years, in the second and third groups 37 years, and in the last group 40 years. (It may be noted, however, that the youngest father of all in the history of British genius, aged sixteen, produced Napier, who introduced logarithms.) It is difficult not to believe that as regards, at all events, the two most discrepant groups, the first and last, we here come on a significant indication.

It is not unreasonable to suppose that in the production of men of religion, in whose activity emotion is so potent a factor, the youthful age of the father should prove favourable, while for the production of genius of a more coldly intellectual and a.n.a.lytic type more elderly fathers are demanded. If that should prove to be so, it would become a source of happiness to religious parents to have their children early, while irreligious persons should be advised to delay parentage. It is scarcely necessary to remark that the age of the mothers is probably quite as influential as that of the fathers.

Concerning the mothers, however, we always have less precise information. My records, so far as they go, agree with Vaerting's for German genius, in indicating that an elderly mother is more likely to produce a child of genius than a very youthful mother. There were only fifteen mothers recorded under twenty-five years of age, while thirteen were over thirty-nine years; the most frequent age of the mothers was twenty-seven. On all these points we certainly need controlling evidence from other countries. Thus, before we insist with Vaerting that an elderly mother is a factor in the production of genius, we may recall that even in Germany the mothers of Goethe and Nietzsche were both eighteen at their distinguished sons' birth. A rule which permits of such tremendous exceptions scarcely seems to bear the strain of emphasis.

It must always be remembered that while the study of genius is highly interesting, and even, it is probable, not without significance for the general laws of heredity, we must not too hastily draw conclusions from it to bear on practical questions of eugenics. Genius is rare and abnormal; laws meant to apply to the general population must be based on a study of the general population. Vaerting, who is alive to the practical character which such problems are to-day a.s.suming, realises how inadequate it is to confine our study to genius. Marro, in his valuable book on p.u.b.erty, some years ago brought forward interesting data showing the result of the age of the parents on the moral and intellectual characters of school-children in North Italy. He found that children with fathers below twenty-six at their birth showed the maximum of bad conduct and the minimum of good; they also yielded the greatest proportion of children of irregular, troublesome, or lazy character, but not of really perverse children who were equally distributed among fathers of all ages. The largest number of cheerful children belonged to young fathers, while the children tended to become more melancholy with ascending age of the fathers. Young fathers produced the largest proportion of intelligent, as well as of troublesome children, but when the very exceptionally intelligent children were considered separately they were found to be more usually the offspring of elderly fathers. As regards the mothers, Marro found that the children of young mothers (under twenty-one) are superior, both as regards conduct and intelligence, though the more exceptionally intelligent children tended to belong to more mature mothers. When the parents were both in the same age-group the immature and the elderly groups tended to produce more children who were unsatisfactory, both as regards conduct and intelligence, than the intermediate group.[4]

But we need to have such inquiries made on a more wholesale and systematic scale. They are no longer of a merely speculative character.

We no longer regard children as the "gifts of G.o.d," flung into our helpless hands; we are beginning to realise that the responsibility is ours to see that they come into the world under the best conditions, and at the moments when their parents are best fitted to produce them.

Vaerting proposes that it should be the business of all school authorities to register the ages of the pupils' parents. This is scarcely a provision to which even the most susceptible parent could reasonably object, though there is no cause to make the declaration compulsory where a "conscientious" objection existed, and in any case the declaration would not be public. It would be an advantage--though this might be more difficult to obtain--to have the date of the parents' marriage, and of the birth of previous children, as well as some record of the father's standing in his occupation. But even the ages of the parents alone would teach us much when correlated with the school position of the pupil in intelligence and in conduct. It is quite true that there are unavoidable fallacies. We are not, as in the case of genius, dealing with people whose life-work is complete and open to the whole world's examination. The good and clever child is not necessarily the forerunner of the first-cla.s.s man or woman; and many capable and successful men have been careless in attendance at lectures and rebellious to discipline. Moreover, the prejudice and limitations of the teachers have also to be recognised. Yet when we are dealing with millions most of these fallacies would be smoothed out. We should be, once for all, in a position to determine authoritatively the exact bearing of one of the simplest and most vital factors of the betterment of the race. We should be in possession of a new clue to guide us in the creation of the man of the coming world. Why not begin to-day?

[1] He has further discussed the subject in _Die Neue Generation_, Aug.-Nov., 1914, and in a more recent (1916) pamphlet which I have not seen.

[2] The reference is to _The Century of the Child_, by Ellen Key, who writes (English translation, p. 2): "My conviction is that the transformation of human nature will take place, not when the whole of humanity becomes Christian, but when the whole of humanity awakens to the consciousness of the 'holiness of generation.' This consciousness will make the central work of Society the new race, its origin, its management, and its education; about these all morals, all laws, all social arrangements will be grouped."

[3] It is not only ability, but idiocy, criminality and many other abnormalities which specially tend to appear in the first-born. The eldest-born represents the point of greatest variation in the family, and the variation thus yielded may be in either direction, useful or useless, good or bad. See, _e.g._, Havelock Ellis, _A Study of British Genius_, pp. 117-120. Soren Hansen, "The Inferior Quality of the First-born Children," _Eugenics Review_, Oct., 1913.

[4] Marro, _La p.u.b.erta_ (French translation _La p.u.b.erte_), Ch. XI.

XV

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE

We contemplate our marriage system with satisfaction. We remember the many unquestionable evidences in favour of it, and we marvel that it so often proves a failure. For while we remember the evidence in favour of it, we forget the evidence against it, and we overlook the important fact that our favourable evidence is largely based on the vision of an abstract or idealised monogamy which fails to correspond to the detailed and ever varying system which in practice we cherish. We point to the fact that monogamic marriage has probably flourished throughout the history of the world, that it exists among savages, even among animals, but we fail to observe how far that monogamy differs from ours, even a.s.suming that our monogamy is a real monogamy and not a disguised polygamy, especially in the fact that it is a free union and only subject to the inherent penalties that follow its infraction, not to external penalties. Ours is not free; our faith in its natural virtues is not quite so firm as we a.s.sert; we are always meddling with it and worrying over its health and anxiously trying to bolster it up.

We are not by any means willing to let it rest on the sanction of its own natural or divine laws. Our feeling is, as James Hinton used ironically to express it: "Poor G.o.d with no one to help Him!"

The fact is that when we compare our civilised marriage system with marriage as it exists in Nature, we fail to realise a fundamental distinction. Our marriage system is made up of two absolutely different elements which cannot blend. On the one hand, it is the manifestation of our deepest and most volcanic impulses. On the other hand, it is an elaborate web of regulations--legal, ecclesiastical, economic--which is to-day quite out of relation to our impulses. On the one hand, it is a force which springs from within; on the other hand, it is a force which presses on us from without.[1] One says broadly that these two elements of marriage, as we understand it, are out of relation to each other.

But there is an important saving qualification to be made. The inner impulse is not without law, and the external pressure is not without an ultimate basis of nature. That is to say, that under free and natural conditions the inner impulse tends to develop itself, not licentiously but with its own order and restraints, while, on the other hand, our inherited regulations are largely the tradition of ancient attempts to fix and register that natural order and restraint. The disharmony comes in with the fact that our regulations are traditional and ancient, not our own attempts to fix and register the natural order but inextricably mixed up with elements that are entirely alien to our civilised habits of life. Whatever our att.i.tude towards mediaeval Canon Law may be--whether reverence or indifference or disgust--it yet holds us and is ingrained into our marriage system to-day. Canon Law was a good and vital thing under the conditions which produced it. The survival of Canon Law to-day, with the antiquated and ascetic conception of the subordination of women a.s.sociated with it, is the chief reason why we in the twentieth century have not yet progressed so far towards a reasonable system of marriage as the Romans had reached on the basis of their law, nearly two thousand years ago.[2] Marriage is conditioned both by inner impulse and outward pressure. But a healthy impulse bears within it an order and restraint of its own, while a truly moral outward pressure is based, not on the demands of mediaeval days, but on the demands of our own day.

How far this is from being the case yet we find well ill.u.s.trated by our divorce methods. All our modern culture favour a sense of the sacredness of the s.e.xual relations; we cherish a delicate reserve concerning all the intimacies of personal relations.h.i.+p. But when the magic word "Divorce" is uttered we fling all our civilisation to the winds, and in the desecrated name of Law we proceed to an inquisition which scarcely differs at all from those public tests of mediaeval law-courts which now we dare not venture even to put into words.

It is true that we are not bound to be consistent when it is an advantage to be inconsistent. And if there were a method in our madness it would be justified. But there is no method. From first to last the history of divorce (read it, for instance, in Howard's _Matrimonial Inst.i.tutions_) is an ever s.h.i.+fting record of cruel blunders and ridiculous absurdities. Divorce began in modern times in flagrant injustice to one of the two partners, the wife, and it has ended--if we may hope that the end is approaching--in imbecilities that to future ages will be incredible. For no legal jargon has ever been invented that will express the sympathies and the antipathies of human relations.h.i.+p; they even escape the subtlest expression. Law-makers have tortured their brains to devise formulas which will cover the legitimate grounds for divorce. How vain their efforts are is sufficiently shown by the fact that by no chance can they ever agree on their formulas, and that they are changing them constantly with feverish haste, dimly realising that they are but the antiquated representatives of mediaevalism, and that soon their occupation will be gone for ever.

The reasons for the making or the breaking of human relations.h.i.+ps can never be formulated. The only result of such legal formulas is that they bring law into contempt because they have to be ingeniously and methodically cheated in order to adapt them in any degree to civilised human needs. Thus such laws not only degrade the name of Law, but they degrade the whole community which tolerates them. There is only one ultimate reason for either marriage or divorce, and that is that the two persons concerned consent to the marriage or consent to the divorce. Why they consent is no concern of any third party, and, maybe, they cannot even put it into words.

At the same time, let us not forget, marriage and divorce are a very real concern of the State, and law cannot ignore either. It is the business of the State to see to it that no interests are injured. The contract of marriage and the contract of divorce are private matters, but it is necessary to guard that no injury is thereby done to either of the contracting persons, or to third parties, or to the community as a whole. The State may have a right to say what persons are unfit for marriage, or at all events for procreation; the State must take care that the weaker party is not injured; the State is especially bound to watch over the interests of children, and this involves, in the best issue, that each child shall have two effective parents, whether or not those parents are living together. A large scope--we are beginning to recognise--must be left alike to freedom of marriage and freedom of divorce, but the State must mark out the limits within which that freedom is exercised.

The loosening hold of the State on marriage is by no means connected with any growing sense of the value of divorce. At the best, it is probable that divorce is merely a necessary evil. One of the chief reasons why we should seek to promote education in relation to s.e.xual relations.h.i.+ps and to inculcate the responsibilities of such relations.h.i.+ps, so making the approach to marriage more circ.u.mspect, is in order to obviate the need for divorce. For divorce is always a confession of failure. Very often, indeed, it involves not only a confession of failure in one particular marriage but of failure for marriage generally. One notes how often the people who fail in a first marriage fail even more hopelessly in the second. They have chosen the wrong partners; but one suspects that for them all partners will prove the wrong partners. One sometimes hears nowadays that a succession of marriage relations.h.i.+ps is desirable in order to develop character. But that depends on many things. It very much depends on what character there is to develop. A man may have relations.h.i.+ps with a hundred women and develop much less character out of his experience, and even acquire a much less intimate knowledge of women, than the man who has spent his life in an endless series of adventures with one woman. It depends a good deal on the man and not a little on the woman.

Thus the work of marriage in the world must depend entirely on the nature of that world. A fine marriage system can only be produced by a fine civilisation of which it is the exquisite flower. Laws cannot better marriage; even education, by itself, is powerless, necessary as it is in conjunction with other influences. The love-relations.h.i.+ps of men and women must develop freely, and with due allowance for the variations which the complexities of civilisation demand. But these relations.h.i.+ps touch the whole of life at so infinite a number of points that they cannot even develop at all save in a society that is itself developing graciously and harmoniously. Do not expect to pluck figs from thistles. As a society is, so will its marriages be.

[1] It is this artificial and external pressure which often produces a revolt against marriage. The author of a remarkable paper ent.i.tled, "Our Incestuous Marriage," in the _Forum_ (Dec., 1915), advocates a reform of social marriage customs "in conformance with the freedom-loving modern nature," and the introduction of "a fresh atmosphere for married life in which personality can be made to appear so sacred and free that marriage will be undertaken and borne as lightly and gracefully as a secret sin."

[2] See Sir James Donaldson, _Woman: Her Position and Influence in Ancient Greece and Rome, 1907_; also S.B. Kitchin's excellent _History of Divorce_, 1912; this author believes that the tendency in modern civilisation is to return to the simple principles of Roman law involving divorce by consent. See also Havelock Ellis, _s.e.x in Relation to Society_, Ch. X.

XVI

THE MEANING OF THE BIRTH-RATE

The history of educated opinion concerning the birth-rate and its interpretation during the past seventy years is full of interest. The actual operative factors--natural, pathological, economic, social, and educational--in raising or lowering the birth-rate, are numerous and complicated, and it is difficult to determine exactly how large a part each factor plays. But without determining that at all, it is still very instructive to observe the evolution of popular intelligent opinion concerning the significance of a high and a low birth-rate.

Popular opinion on this matter may be said to have pa.s.sed through three stages. I am referring to Western Europe and more particularly to England and Germany, for it must be remembered that, in this matter, England and Germany are running a parallel course. England happens to be, on the whole, a little ahead, having reached its period of full expansion at a somewhat earlier period than Germany, but each people is pursuing the same course.

In the first stage--let us say about the middle of the last century and the succeeding thirty years--the popular att.i.tude was one of jubilant satisfaction in a high and rising birth-rate. There had been an immense expansion of industry. The whole world seemed nothing but a great field for the energetic and industrial nations to exploit. Workers were needed to keep up with the expansion and to keep down wages to a rate which would make industrial expansion easy; soldiers and armaments were needed to protect the movements of expansion. It seemed to the more exuberant spirits that a vast British Empire, or a mighty Pan-Germany, might be expected to cover the whole world. France, with its low and falling birth-rate, was looked down at with contempt as a decadent country inhabited by a degenerate population. No attempts to a.n.a.lyse the birth-rate, to ascertain what are really the biological, social, and economic accompaniments of a high birth-rate, made any impression on the popular mind. They were drowned in the general shout of exultation.