ies; and there would
be more if there was a register. But the greatest difficulty, I think,
would be in deciding who deserved to be on the register. How few are
above mediocrity in health, strength, morals and intellect; and how
difficult to judge on these latter heads. As far as I see, within the
same large superior family, only a few of the children would deserve
to be on the register; and these would naturally stick to their own
families, so that the superior children of distinct families would have
no good chance of associating much and forming a caste. Though I see so
much difficulty, the object seems a grand one; and you have pointed out
the sole feasible, yet I fear utopian, plan of procedure in improving
the human race. I should be inclined to trust more (and this is part
of your plan) to disseminating and insisting on the importance of the
all-important principle of inheritance. I will make one or two minor
criticisms. Is it not possible that the inhabitants of malarious
countries owe their degraded and miserable appearance to the bad
atmosphere, though this does not kill them, rather than to "economy of
structure"? I do not see that an orthognathous face would cost more
than a prognathous face; or a good morale than a bad one. That is a fine
simile (page 119) about the chip of a statue (412/4. "...The life of the
individual is treated as of absolutely no importance, while the race is
as everything; Nature being wholly careless of the former except as a
contributor to the maintenance and evolution of the latter. Myriads
of inchoate lives are produced in what, to our best judgment, seems a
wasteful and reckless manner, in order that a few selected specimens
may survive, and be the parents of the next generation. It is as though
individual lives were of no more consideration than are the senseless
chips which fall from the chisel of the artist who is elaborating some
ideal form from a rude block" (loc. cit., page 119).); but surely Nature
does not more carefully regard races than individuals, as (I believe I
have misunderstood what you mean) evidenced by the multitude of races
and species which have become extinct. Would it not be truer to say that
Nature cares only for the superior individuals and then makes her new
and better races? But we ought both to shudder in using so freely the
word "Nature" (412/5. See Letter 190, Volume I.) after what De Candolle
has said. Again let me thank you for the interest received