150 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



instincts have tolerated. In the light of our know- 

 ledge to-day we have no reason to believe that such 

 defective instincts are not hereditarily transmitted, 

 and much to show that they really are. No one who 

 has carefully investigated family pedigrees can doubt 

 the fact. I am quite certain from families which I 

 know that the qualities of being dirty or clean, 

 methodical or unmethodical, are hereditarily trans- 

 mitted as such. I affirm nothing as yet regarding 

 their Mendelian inheritance. I assert only their 

 inheritance. If Miss Wodehouse will make unbiassed 

 observations in the light of my statement I feel sure 

 she will recognise its truth. The facts are familiar 

 to everyone ; it is the interpretation which is lacking. 

 Therefore if we set outside powers to work to save 

 these people, so that their propagation may be long 

 continued and prolific, we shall rear in increasing 

 numbers vast hordes of inherently dirty people, 

 who will have to be kept clean by an alarmingly 

 increasing army of human wash-tub attendants, other- 

 wise known as Government officials, paid for by the 

 clean people. Why not at once let us be complete 

 and logical ; and because the mouth is the main 

 portal to the lungs and stomach, in which in dirty 

 people all sorts of microbes may be lodged, ordain 

 another army of tooth-scrubbers, who shall at a 

 stated hour twice a day clean the teeth of all dirty 

 people who will not voluntarily do it ? Ludicrous 

 though it may seem to those old-fashioned but 

 worthy people who believe that an individual should 

 stand or fall by his own merits or at most by those 



