Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/30

 Environment thus acts directly upon stature through the food supply and economic prosperity. The second modifying influence lies in so-called artificial selection—a cause which is peculiarly potent in modern social life. The efficiency of this force depends upon the intimate relation which exists between bodily height and physical vigor. Other things being equal, a goodly stature in a youth implies a surplus of energy over and above the amount requisite merely to sustain life. Hence it follows that, more often than otherwise, a tall population implies a relatively healthy one. Our double map, covering the westernmost promontory of French Brittany, shows this most clearly. In the interior cantons, shorter on the average by an inch than in towns along the seacoast, there is a corresponding increase of defective or



constitutional types. The parallelism between the two maps is broken in but three or four instances. The map, in fact, illustrates the truth of our assertion far better than words can express it.



This relation between stature and health is brought to concrete expression in the armies of Europe through a rejection of all recruits for service who fall below a certain minimum standard of height, generally about five feet. The result of this is to preclude the possibility of marriage for all the fully developed men, during their three years in barracks; while the undersized individuals, exempted from service on this account, are left free to propagate the species meanwhile. Is it not apparent that the effect of this artificial selection is to put a distinct premium upon inferiority of stature, in so far as future generations are concerned? This enforced postponement of marriage for the normal man, not required of the degenerate, is even more important than at first sight appears. It implies not merely that the children of