Note 70 — Chapter XIV

Galton's Hereditary Genius, pp. 357-8. It may be argued, on the other side, that the monasteries consigned to celibacy a great proportion of the weaker physical natures, who would otherwise have left sickly children behind them. This, and the much greater mortality of weak infant life, must have strengthened the race in an age when sanitary science was unknown and when external conditions were very unfavourable.