SOME FACTS OF INHERITANCE 131 



The Sansculottes of Paris and their leaders attempted 

 it in connection with other problems, and deservedly 

 lost their heads on the guillotine in consequence. To 

 play with the subtle and yet powerful promptings of 

 men is to invite a conflagration in which decrees shall 

 be rightly burned and their authors justly destroyed. 

 All the suggestions put forward in advocacy of 

 " marriaore certificates " seem to those who are 



o 



acquainted both with the course of History and the 

 facts of Heredity to be untenable in even the smallest 

 measure. The pedigree of Dr. Rutherfurd affords a 

 concrete example of the difficulties which beset the 

 practical application of all such schemes. 



Let us take, for instance, the individual No. 8, 

 in the B. Generation, and ask ourselves the question : 

 Is he degenerate or normal ? Is his degeneracy 

 physical, intellectual, or moral, or all three ? If 

 he is only physically degenerate, but mentally and 

 morally normal, shall we incarcerate him and forbid 

 him marriage ? If he is morally as well as physically 

 degenerate, but mentally quite capable, what shall 

 we do with him ? Let us enquire, then, into the facts 

 concerning him. He was drimken and immoral, and 

 at seventy years of age died of apoplexy. He mani- 

 fested the sort of reckless deeds of which he was 

 capable by marrying a woman who suffered from 

 double hernia, was epileptic, and ultimately developed 

 paralysis agitans. Such a woman undoubtedly had 

 undesirable family connections, and he must, or 

 should, have known of them. Was he civically 

 degenerate because of his consistent immorality and 



