138 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



ronment, and did not attempt to deal with the 

 general proposition raised by Mr. Miidge in his 

 iirst paper, with much of which, indeed, I am in 

 sympathy. I, too, deplore the fact that the 

 criminal and degenerated strains in our race are 

 allowed to perpetuate themselves and to multiply. 

 But, then, I do not think that all the children 

 of our slums are degenerate, but believe that many — 

 probably the great majority — will grow into useful 

 men and women if given a fair chance. Herein, I 

 suppose, we differ. Human nature appears to Mr. 

 Mudge less plastic than it does to me. And, con- 

 sequently, I attach more importance to environment 

 than he is willing to allow. And, yet, he too 

 admits the influence of environment, for evil if not 

 for good, when in his " Rejoinder " he claims that 

 the children of the island, to which was sent the 

 scouring of the Glasgow slums, became contami- 

 nated by the examples set by the latter. Again, 

 I differ from him in thinking that we do not err in 

 trying to cure the sick and to stamp out disease, 

 for I am not convinced that there is any correla- 

 tion in general between susceptibility to a given 

 disease and other human weakness, excepting, 

 perhaps, in such diseases as epilepsy and some kinds 

 of insanity, and such as are due to intemperance. 



My first paper, as I have already said, was 

 intended to deal only with a single point raised by 

 Mr. Mudge, namely, the degree oi permajience oi any 

 improvement wrought in a given strain of human 

 beings by purposely altering the environment of a 



