Falling In Love — Grant Allen

This highly educational book comprises a series of essays by the intellectual and scientist Grant Allen author and novelist and a successful upholder of many scientific theories As a scientist Allen was an evolutionist and as a novelist one of his most persistent themes was the effect of heredity Even his lighter and more popular works evidence not only his scientific outlook but also his persistent questioning of established convention and of institutions and officials that uphold it A walk with him was an education in botany and zoology and he had no whimsies or quirks he was always reasonable good tempered vivacious bright and interested in every human interest He would always like to regulate human life generally as a department of the India Office and so Sir George Campbell would fain have husbands and wives selected for one another perhaps on Dr Johnson s principle by the Lord Chancellor with a view to the future development of the race in the process which he not very felicitously or elegantly describes as man breeding Probably he says as reported in Nature we have enough physiological knowledge to effect a vast improvement in the pairing of individuals of the same or allied races if we could only apply thatknowledge to make fitting marriages instead of giving way to foolish ideas about love and the tastes of young people whom we can hardly trust to choose their own bonnets much less to choose in a graver matter in which they are most likely to be influenced by frivolous prejudices He wants us in other words to discard the deep seated inner physiological promptings of inherited instinct and to substitute for them some calm and dispassionate but artificial selection of a fitting partner as the father or mother of future generations

This highly educational book comprises a series of essays by the intellectual and scientist Grant Allen author and novelist and a successful upholder of many scientific theories As a scientist Allen was an evolutionist and as a novelist one of his most persistent themes was the effect of heredity Even his lighter and more popular works evidence not only his scientific outlook but also his persistent questioning of established convention and of institutions and officials that uphold it A walk with him was an education in botany and zoology and he had no whimsies or quirks he was always reasonable good tempered vivacious bright and interested in every human interest He would always like to regulate human life generally as a department of the India Office and so Sir George Campbell would fain have husbands and wives selected for one another perhaps on Dr Johnson s principle by the Lord Chancellor with a view to the future development of the race in the process which he not very felicitously or elegantly describes as man breeding Probably he says as reported in Nature we have enough physiological knowledge to effect a vast improvement in the pairing of individuals of the same or allied races if we could only apply thatknowledge to make fitting marriages instead of giving way to foolish ideas about love and the tastes of young people whom we can hardly trust to choose their own bonnets much less to choose in a graver matter in which they are most likely to be influenced by frivolous prejudices He wants us in other words to discard the deep seated inner physiological promptings of inherited instinct and to substitute for them some calm and dispassionate but artificial selection of a fitting partner as the father or mother of future generations img src https s3 eu west 1 amazonaws com dia kitadagitim ckeditor_assets pictures 53 content_1_original_original jpg alt height 15 width 15 font size 1 color white font img