Part 13

Now, the outcome of such marriages seems to be a vitiated stream of tendency, which carries with it in its progress from generation to generation certain elements which predetermine to still fuller vitiation, even with incurable insanity, as noted above. Thus, people endowed with such natural characteristics, being altogether too prone to gravitate toward each other, eventually marry, and thus emphasize in progeny the vitiation already doubly initiated. Nature's course demands that such people marry, if at all, into the healthiest, most corrective stock possible. But here immediately there arises not only a scientific prohibition, but an ethical question which should be heeded: Should such people really marry even the best of stock, with the probability of thus vitiating a stream which until this time has evidently been becoming clearer and stronger? Again, people who are constitutionally tending to mental breakdown are very apt to load themselves down with duties and get themselves into situations which must necessarily prove to be too onerous and too perplexing for their poorly developed strength and skill. Of course, circumstances often require this. Many times, however, there is a kind of impulsive restlessness coupled with a short-sighted optimism, both constitutional, which, altogether more than ordinary circumstances, are to blame for undue assumption of work or care, and whose effect is, perhaps, best seen in the persistent tendency of such people to originate and perpetuate exhausting habits, both of mind and body. Thus, the habit of self-poisoning from poorly digested and poorly assimilated food is easily acquired by such people, and always becomes a source of progressive brain starvation and often of consequent mental breakdown. Says Dr. A. S. Thayer (Journal of Medicine and Science, vol. iii, page 173), "There is ground for belief that exhaustion--fatigue--is dependent upon poisoning of the cells of the brain, muscles, and other tissues by the waste products of functional activity."[D] Again, as already noted, perversions of the natural instincts--of appetite for food, of desire for gain, of social or other ambitions, and especially of the sexual impulse and its habitual indulgence--fasten themselves upon such individuals with a permanence and destructiveness that must almost of necessity lead to disaster.[E] And so we may see that as a most natural, although often a far-removed, result of unphysiological marriages, proceeding through generations which have been thus predestinated to weakening choices and practices, insanity finally appears to mark the ultimate extent both of the mental disorganization and bodily inefficiency, which extent is owing not only to the original initiating steps, but also to subsequent stages of causation, progressively developed from generation to generation.

Another great source of vitiation of the stream of tendency is found in two people who marry in a truly enough physiological sense, but who find or force themselves in lives of wear and tear which progressively unfit them for childbearing and child nurture. Poorly calculated ambitions, unexpected difficulties to be surmounted, depressing oppositions, with perhaps more or less actual disease or accident, largely account for this in a general way. Obviously, during the child-rearing age, the effect of what parents are obliged to endure and execute upon the fortunes of progeny becomes a matter of far-reaching importance. That anything which persistently exhausts or overstrains the parents must tell in the later dynamic tendency and development is premised at least by certain recent studies, especially those of Hodge on the influence of fatigue, and of Van Gieson on the effects of exhaustion and intoxication upon the nervous elements. (See also Peterson, _op. cit._) In no sense can parents be said to live for themselves chiefly. Always the influence of their own health, happiness, and prosperity upon their children should be remembered, and should be made as constructive as possible. That this can be consciously attempted with commensurate results is more or less evidenced not only by common observation but by investigation. Not, however, in the sense that parents are always able to endow children with some particular, much-wished-for characteristic, as so many suppose--for it must be remembered that perhaps pretty fixed tendencies for several generations may have to be overcome and reversed before such special results can be obtained, but in the much better sense of giving such an impetus healthward and strengthward and lifeward as may later on be the beginning of a constitutional foundation that shall support many generations of full health and longevity.

If, then, the first steps--and, generally speaking, the most important steps--are discovered in the unphysiological marriage and its influence upon the bearing and rearing of progeny, then it is obvious enough that prevention of incurable insanity should begin with giving adequate attention to this phase of the subject, and this first and emphatically. Already the law says that certain peculiarly afflicted individuals can not marry; and probably this is about as far as the law can helpfully go until, at least, public intelligence as well as private sentiment will sustain it in going further. So we must look to these latter--a widespread intelligence and a corresponding earnest sentiment founded upon such intelligence--for the means of making progress toward the prevention of insanity. But how can this needed knowledge and helpful sentiment come to be? Certainly not by perpetuating the present notions of so-called "modesty" and "purity," which, as now held, must always interfere with the study and practice necessary for ascertaining the truth, and for applying it to the needs of race-building. The time ought to come soon, very soon, when matters of such serious content shall not be so absolutely subject to the dominance of conventionality and guesswork and recklessness as now, but shall instead be subject to the sway of accurate science and its careful adaptation to human conditions. Every marriage now is at best but an experiment--blind and chance-taking often, in a most wasteful and dangerous sense. Let it remain, if it must, an experiment still, but one which shall be henceforth conducted with such foresight and skill, and withal with such intelligent purpose, as shall certainly point to improved results from generation to generation. Experience shows that it is comparatively easy to ascertain what marriages, generally speaking, are prone to result in obviously vitiated progeny; or if not in these, then, to some extent at least, in the progeny which, being unnaturally constituted, are prone to develop their weaker strands of personality, and so to break down in the end. But to this course neither prudery nor superstition nor selfishness will ever assent; it must be pursued in spite of these, and by the only method which science now recognizes--namely, accurate observation, careful record, and the most comprehensive, skillful comparison, all in order that truthful inductions may be finally secured. That parents should train up their children to look forward to marriage not as the acme of personal indulgence and satisfaction, but as a most responsible partnership for the developmental keeping of unborn fortunes, and the proper nurturing of the children that may come to them, is no longer speculation, but a science-founded fact. Undoubtedly the highest state of adult satisfaction will always be closely associated with what may be characterized as child completion. Moreover, that an educational system which so thoroughly ignores this most important of all educational subjects must, in time, be subjected to the criticism which science may justly develop, is amply borne out by the cases studied. Often, indeed, has it appeared that had a modicum of real knowledge been at hand, most disastrous results would naturally have been obviated. Educators lead the day; why not they lead in directions which shall most truly correct the results of physiological ignorance and daring? That no man or woman should go forth from college with such vital knowledge unlearned is probably the first and most important means of preventing incurable insanity conceivable; and that these in turn should never hesitate to diffuse popularly that which they have been so favored in the learning, implies a duty which the intelligence itself makes clear.

So, too, if persistent overstrain and exhaustion of parents, either prospective or actual, leads directly to starvation of their own structural elements, how probable that the initiating and bearing and nurturing of children is to a like extent detrimentally interfered with in any given case through the development of an "erratic cell growth." Certain it is that completeness of development depends on two things--namely, nutrition and exercise. In a biological sense both these are dependent upon a right adjustment of supply to demand. Hence starvation or engorgement, inactivity or overwork, each may lead to the same dynamic result--that is to say, to an interference with the proper growth of the organism. That due heed, then, should always be given to the necessary health preservation of those who essay to become parents, not only in preparation for but during the whole so-called childbearing period, is so scientifically deducible that it may be for all practical purposes considered as axiomatic. The way to have healthy, long-lived, and happy children is for parents to be healthful and intelligently careful themselves; while the whole science of health must eventually consist in the science of such symmetrical and high development as will enable individuals to endure necessary strain, resist disease, and rapidly and fully recover from accident and infection.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] "It is perfectly certain that two in every three children are irretrievably damaged or hindered in their mental and moral development in the schools; but I am not sure that they would fare better if they stayed at home."--Baldwin, in _Mental Development_, p. 38.

[B] See an instance clearly elucidative of this in an account of the Kelly murder trial, given by Dr. Walter Channing in the American Journal of Insanity for January, 1898, page 385.

[C] See New York Medical Journal for August 14, 1897.

[D] See also Dr. Edward Cowles. Shattuck Lecture on Neurasthenia.

[E] See Peterson. The Stigmata of Degeneration. State Hospitals Bulletin, vol. i, p. 327.

SKETCH OF WILLIAM PENGELLY.

The name of William Pengelly is most closely associated with the explorations of caves in England containing relics of men together with the remains of extinct animals, the results of which, confirming similar conclusions that had been reached in France, convinced English geologists of man's extreme antiquity. Speaking of him at the time of his death as one of the last survivors of the heroes who laid the foundation of geological science, Prof. T. G. Bonney said, "He has left behind an example of what one man can do in advancing knowledge by energy and perseverance."

WILLIAM PENGELLY was born at East Looe, a fishing village in Cornwall, England, January 12, 1812, and died in Torquay, March 16, 1894. The name of Pengelly is not uncommon in Cornwall, and has figured in English history--among others, in the person of Sir Thomas Pengelly, who was chief baron of the exchequer, and left certain sums for the discharge of debtors from the jails of Bodmin and Launceston. His father was captain of a small coasting vessel, and he acquired a strong attachment to the sea. He was sent to the Dame's School in his native village when very young, and before he was five years old had made so rapid progress that his mother applied to the master of a school for larger boys to receive him as a pupil. The master declined to take him, but, hearing him reading as he passed the door of the house not long afterward, concluded to grant the mother's request. At school he soon gained such a reputation for scholarship that the boys made him spend all his play hours helping them in their lessons. His school days ended when he was twelve years old, and he accompanied his father to sea, making, however, voyages that were seldom more than three days long, most of the work of which consisted in taking in and taking out cargo. The sailors soon discovered his clerkly gifts and employed him to write their letters, but did not so well appreciate his excellent conversational powers. On "tailoring days" it was understood that his clothes should be repaired for him, while he read aloud for the general benefit, and the sailors would amuse themselves by finding solutions to questions in Walkingham's Arithmetic. His seafaring life closed in his sixteenth year, when the death of a brother made it desirable that he should remain at home.

Though working hard all the day for a mere support, young Pengelly managed to spend several hours every night in study, seeking to master mathematics. He had no tutor and no really good text-books, but made such progress in his studies that in a comparatively short time he became "a mathematical tutor of no mean order." He bought his first Euclid of a peddler who occasionally visited the place; then, having saved up a little money for the purpose, it was a happy day for him when he walked thirty miles to Devonport and back, bearing, on his return, twenty volumes in a bundle over his shoulder; among them were the works of some of the standard authors, for he cultivated a literary as well as a mathematical taste.

He received his first lesson in geology while he was still a sailor boy, at Lyme Regis--a spot exceedingly rich in fossils. A laborer whom he was observing broke a stone, the opening of which disclosed a fine ammonite. To his question as to what the fossil was, the laborer replied that if he had read his Bible he would have known; that there was once a flood that covered all the world; the things that were drowned were buried in the mud, and this was a snake which had suffered that fate. "A snake! but where's his head?" He was again referred to the Bible, which would tell him why the snakes in the rocks had no heads. "We're told there that the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. That's how 'tis." The second lesson came a few years later, in a reading club of which Pengelly was a member. They were reading Dick's Christian Philosopher, and came to a geological section, when the reader remarked that "as geology was very likely to be extremely dry, and as many good people thought it dangerous if not decidedly infidel in its teachings, he would propose that the selection should not be read. This was passed by acclamation, and the reader passed on to astronomy."

While still young, Pengelly removed to Torquay, where he spent the remainder of his life. Shortly after arriving there, he opened a small day school on the Pestalozzian system, into which he introduced the novelty of the use of chalk and the blackboard in giving instruction. Beginning with six pupils, the school grew rapidly. He had private pupils, too, and in 1846 these had become so numerous that he gave up his school, and as a special tutor in mathematics and the natural sciences found his life occupation. Some of his pupils became distinguished in after life; while others, like the two Russian princes, nephews of the Czar Alexander II, and Princess Mary, of the Netherlands, all of whom became much attached to him, were famous by reason of their position. His attention was brought for a third time to geology while looking over some books which he thought might be useful to his pupils, when he found one published by the brothers Chambers, which contained a chapter on that science. This was not much, but it was enough to inform him how much had already been done in geology, and, perhaps, to give him a hint of some of the possibilities that lay in it. From this time on, he was ardently interested in geology. The journal of his first visit to London and the British Museum, in 1843, attests how he was becoming absorbed in it. He spent his holidays in geological explorations and in excursions which gradually grew larger, until his position as a geologist was recognized, and he became an authority respecting all points and phenomena which had come under his personal knowledge. A hint dropped to him by Professor Jameson as he was about to visit the Isle of Arran taught him to make his notes of observations on the spot, and greatly helped, his daughter Hester observes in the biography on which we have drawn very largely, "to form those habits of extreme accuracy which characterized all his scientific work."

In 1837 Mr. Pengelly assisted in the reorganization of the Torquay Mechanics' Institute, with which he maintained a connection for more than twenty years, and before which he delivered many lectures. In 1844 he participated in the organization of the Torquay Natural History Society, of which he became, in 1851, honorary secretary, and remained so for more than thirty-nine years. "Under his guidance it became a scientific power in the country. Year after year he lectured there, tincturing the locality with his own enthusiasm; and from the society there ultimately sprang the museum in Babbacombe Road, with its admirable collections."

His lectures, delivered gratuitously at Torquay, were very popular, and were attended by large audiences. The fame of them spread, and he was called to other places--Exeter, Exmouth, and larger towns and farther off, and to the great learned societies--where he lectured, always with success, and to the satisfaction and delight of his audiences. "Those persons living, and they are many," says Mr. F. S. Ellis in the preface to Hester Pengelly's biography of her father, "who had the good fortune to hear Pengelly lecture will bear ready witness to the complete mastery he always had of his subject, and of the faculty of imparting his knowledge. Even when speaking upon abstruse subjects to a mixed audience, he would make the matter perfectly clear without in any degree appearing to talk down to the capacity of those he was addressing.... His manner was no less pleasing and attractive than the language in which he clothed his ideas was grateful to the ear." Geology and astronomy furnished the subjects of the lectures.

It would be impracticable in a brief sketch to follow the detail of Pengelly's geological investigations previous to his engaging in systematic cave exploration. They embraced fields chiefly in Devonshire and Cornwall, and afforded subjects for correspondence and discussion with many of the most eminent British geologists, and some of other countries than England. A study of some fossil fish, first observed by Mr. Charles W. Peach in Cornwall, furnished the occasion for one of his first recorded papers, On the Ichthyolites of East Cornwall, in the Transactions of the Royal Geological Society of East Cornwall, 1849-'50; and a single volume--the seventh--of these Transactions contains nine of his papers. Another subject of interest was the beekites, curious formations of chalcedonic silica on the limestone fragments in the New Red Sandstone of Devonshire, first observed by Dr. Beek, of Bristol, concerning which he read a paper at the Cheltenham meeting of the British Association, the first which he attended, in 1856. In 1860 he completed the formation of a collection of Devonian fossils from Devon and Cornwall, which was presented by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts to the new museum of the University of Oxford, in connection with the foundation of a geological scholarship, and was named "the Pengelly Collection."

The first of the more important geological researches with which Pengelly's name is intimately associated was the exploration of the peculiar formation at Bovey Tracey, for the identification of its fossils and the determination of its age. The plain in which the formation lay had an aspect suggesting the basin of an ancient lake, and its deposits, "very different from the solid rocks of the surrounding hills," confirmed the suggestion. They consisted of gravels, sands, and clays, distinctly stratified, with seams of lignite, for which they had been worked. The pits had already attracted some notice, and the deposits had been mentioned in scientific literature, but very little had been learned concerning their age. In 1860 the subject was mentioned by the late Dr. Falconer, an eminent paleontologist, to Miss Burdett-Coutts as one the investigation of which would be a boon to science. Miss Coutts supplied the money that was needed, and the direction of the systematic investigation was intrusted to Pengelly; on learning which, Sir Charles Lyell wrote to him: "I am very glad of the prospect of our knowing something of the Bovey coal plants. It is almost a reproach to English geology that they have been so little explored, as they are perhaps the only fossils of the Tertiary period to which they belong." In order to determine accurately the nature, thickness, and order of the successive beds, and to make a satisfactory collection of fossils, a new section of the deposit was made, measuring one hundred and twenty-five feet, down to the bottom of a seam of lignite four feet in thickness, the "last bed" of the workmen, but not at the actual base of the deposit. Thirteen of the thirty-one beds of lignite which were cut through, and two of the beds of clay, yielded distinguishable plant remains. These were sent to Dr. Oswald Heer, of Switzerland, for examination; and he determined from the collection fifty species, including ferns, conifers, figs, cinnamon trees, an oak, a laurel, vines, andromedas, a bilberry, a gardenia, a water lily, and some leguminous plants. Heer referred the group to the Lower Miocene period, but some modification was afterward made in this determination in the light of a fuller knowledge of the Tertiary flora. The deposits and work at Bovey Tracey were the subject of a memoir to the Royal Society by Sir Charles Lyell; and Dr. Heer's account of his work--The Fossil Flora of Bovey Tracey--was published in 1863.

While this investigation was going on, Lyell was preparing the fifth edition of his Manual of Geology. He invited Pengelly to suggest corrections to the text, saying that, besides positive mistakes, he would "be glad of any hints and suggestions made freely, which your knowledge of the manner in which beginners are struck may enable you to send us." The criticisms supplied by Mr. Pengelly were adopted by Lyell except where they had already been made unnecessary.