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Table of Contents

THE POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENT OF THE HUMAN BREED,

generation with a filial one when they are statistically alike. Minor corrections will be hereafter required, and can be applied when we have a better knowledge of the material. In the meantime it will serve as a standard table of descent from each generation of a people to its successor.

Economy of Effort.—I shall now use the table to show the economy of concentrating our attention upon the highest classes. We will therefore trace the origin of the V class—which is the highest in the table. Of its 34 or 35 sons, 6 come from V parentages, 10 from U, 10 from T, 5 from S, 3 from R, and none from any class below R. But the numbers of the contributing parentages have also to be taken into account. When this is done, we see that the lower classes make their scores owing to their quantity and not to their quality; for while 35 V-class parents suffice to produce 6 sons of the V class, it takes 2500 R-class fathers to produce 3 of them. Consequently the richness in produce of V-class parentages is to that of the R-class in an inverse ratio, or as 143 to 1. Similarly, the richness in produce of

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