The marriage of near kin : considered with respect to the laws of nations, the results of experience, and the teachings of biology / by Alfred Henry Huth.

Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The marriage of near kin : considered with respect to the laws of nations, the results of experience, and the teachings of biology / by Alfred Henry Huth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    undisturbed would make the discovery of truth impossible. The importance of the subject^ the happiness of many people^ the elicitation of truths are sufficient to justify the author in this course of an inquiry which he would have been content to leave to the common sense of the present age^ in which theories are no longer adored because our fathers have believed in them^ had not all-prying Science lit upon the question^ and after her fashion made men doubt truth to be a liar^ in order that they might doubt those things also which are not truths. Of the many shortcomings of the work the author is fully aware; but he does not pretend to have attempted an exhaustive inquiry^ for which^ in the present state of our knowledge^ a lifetime would be too short. He will be satis- fied if he has only succeeded in showing how rotten is the foundation of what many people accept as demonstrated truths,, leaving to others the task of building a worthier edifice. For every statement the author has given a refer- ence to his authority,, which with the index to Authors quoted is amply sufficient for verification; he hopes,, therefore, that if his work does not help to decide the question as to the advisability of marriage betiveen near kin, it will at least serve as a hand-book to the literature of the subject, and prevent certain authors from assuming as demonstrated, a question whose investigation is as yet hardly begun, ALFRED H, HUTH. 17, Kensington Square, May, 1875.