226 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



conception. It lies outside his legitimate domain. But it is 

 perhaps permissible for him to accept the conception as it stands, 

 and to plead that it is a nobler thing to invest the " divine spark " 

 in a beautiful and healthy body, than in an ugly and repulsive 

 one. If the great object of rehgion is to teach a noble ideal of 

 Hfe, and is to lead men to love the beautiful in conduct and 

 thought, surely that end will be the better attained, if the love of 

 beautiful bodies and repugnance of stunted, distorted, and 

 abnormal ones, becomes a prevailing tone of Society. That 

 frame of mind which loves beauty in structure will be less 

 apt, we should imagine, to love ugliness of conduct, than 

 minds which dehght in " broken reeds." And this prevailing 

 tone is only possible when those who "give tone" to Society are 

 themselves so innately constructed that beauty spontaneously 

 appeals to them. But quite apart from an abstraction of this 

 sort, there remains the consideration that if there be any relation- 

 ship at all between the merits of men on earth and their trans- 

 formed selves in another sphere, then it is the bounden duty of 

 the Church to exert itself to the utmost to see that only a sound 

 and noble stock is propagated on the earth. For surely it is the 

 highest duty to ensure that its efforts shall stock»that subhmer 

 sphere with high souls worthy of their place. But if there be no 

 such relationship, then the Church and its present efiorts are 

 futile. They would have no meaning. If it does not matter what 

 our bodies and conduct are in this world, because irrespective of 

 anything we have been or of any deeds we have done on earth, 

 we are all equally to be angels in a higher sphere of hfe, then the 

 whole base upon which the teaching of the Church is founded 

 falls away. It has nothing which can appeal to man. Such an 

 attitude is, of course, hopeless and spiritually meaningless. 

 Therefore, it seems to us, that the Church has by the progress of 

 biological knowledge been brought face to face with a problem 

 to which it must give at once a definite '' Yea " or " Nay," or 

 cease any longer to be either the spiritual or material guiding 

 hght of its nation. It is in duty bound to fall into line with the 

 Eugenic movement of to-day, and in season and out of it, rising 

 supreme over ever}^ other consideration, to preach that it is 

 sinful for defective stocks to propagate and equally sinful for 

 sound stocks not to multiply. 



It will thus be seen that the book of Dr. Whetham and his 

 wife raises within its pages many interesting problems. To those 

 who read it, many others will present themselves, as they 

 have to us. The introductory chapter is followed by one on 

 the "Scientific Study of Variation and Heredity." Chapter III. 

 deals with " Inheritance and Variation in Mankind." In Chap- 

 ters IV. and V. the subjects are " Inheritance of Mental Defect," 



