HEREDITY OR ENVIRONMENT 143 



is swamped by the new and imported vicious one ! 

 And this by the people who believe in the influence 

 of environment ! Was ever so absurd a reductio 

 ad a'>surdum of au}^ doctrine before? " Thus, Mr. 

 Mudge, and I thoroughly agree with him. The 

 experiment was a thoroughly bad experiment. But 

 how, then, can Mr. Mudge believe that it will con- 

 vince any one of the uselessness of trying to reform 

 human beings by transplanting them to a new 

 environment, when he himself admits that in the 

 experiment the vicious eHvironment ivas imported 

 along with the children ? 



May I remark, in passing, that Mr. Mudge seeins 

 to have rather a confused notion of the kind of 

 environment which social reformeis believe to be 

 capable of improving human character. If, indeed, 

 there be a school of Blue Sky Philanthropists, let 

 me dissociate myself from them at once. It is not 

 by " romantic scenery " nor by " sea breezes," good 

 things though these be, that human nature is to be 

 drawn fundamentally out of its course, but rather 

 by the example of well-ordered lives. In a word, 

 it is the human environment, and not the scenic one, 

 which counts. 



Mr. Mudge does not move me from my faith in 

 environment by his tale of the three "half-witted " 

 brothers who wrecked such disaster upon their 

 unfortunate associates, for I recognise these as 

 degenerates whom it is useless to try to reclaim. 

 Such, as soon as they have given clear evidence of 

 their nature, I should like to see segregated and 



