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Even supposing that we could breed men having the tenacity of

bulldogs, or, like the Spartans, 'lacking the wit to run away in

battle,' would the world be any the better? Many of the noblest

specimens of the human race have been among the weakest

physically. Tyrtaeus or Aesop, or our own Newton, would have been

exposed at Sparta; and some of the fairest and strongest men and

women have been among the wickedest and worst. Not by the

Platonic device of uniting the strong and fair with the strong

and fair, regardless of sentiment and morality, nor yet by his

other device of combining dissimilar natures (Statesman), have

mankind gradually passed from the brutality and licentiousness of

primitive marriage to marriage Christian and civilized.