That our interpretation, through panmixia on a basis of germinal selection, is the correct one, we infer also from the fact that short-sightedness has been proved to be a frequent character even among our domesticated animals, such as the dog and the horse. These animals receive protection and maintenance from Man, and their survival and reproduction no longer depend on the acuteness of their sight, and thus the eye has fallen from its original perfection, just as in Man, although in this case reading and writing play no part. A whole series of similar slight deteriorations of individual organs and systems of organs might be enumerated, all of which have appeared in consequence of long and intensive culture in Man. All these must depend upon germinal selection, on a gradually progressive weakening of the determinant-groups concerned, under the conditions of panmixia, that is, in the absence of positive selection. To these must be added the deterioration of the mammary-glands and breasts, and the inability to suckle the offspring which results chiefly from this. Here we have a variational tendency which could not appear in a people at a lower stage of culture, and it has not become general in the lower classes of society among ourselves. The muscular weakness of the higher classes is another case in point, and all gymnastics and sports will be of no avail as long as a relative weakness of the muscles is not a hindrance to gaining a livelihood, and having a family. Even universal conscription will do nothing to check this falling off of the bodily strength. Certainly military service strengthens thousands, and hundreds of thousands of individuals, but it does not prevent the weaklings from multiplying, and thus reproducing the race-deterioration. But it would indeed be well if only those who had gone through a term of military service were allowed to beget children. It is only among the peasantry, inasmuch as they really work and do not merely look on as proprietors of the ground, that such a deterioration of the general muscular strength could not become the permanent variational tendency of the determinants concerned, because among genuine peasants bodily strength is a condition of having and supporting a family--at least on an average.