528 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1926 
account of its intrinsic interest and also because it typifies Bateson’s 
general attitude toward genetics: ‘Treasure your exceptions! When 
there are none the work gets so dull that no one cares to carry it 
further. Keep them always uncovered and in sight. Exceptions are 
like the rough brick work of a growing building, which tells that 
there is more to come and shows where the next construction is 
to be.’ 
“The Herbert Spencer lecture (1912) on‘ Biological Facts and the 
Structure of Society’ is in the main a warning to the eugenists that 
our present knowledge of Mendelian principles tells us not to make 
hasty generalizations as to human society, for ‘ let us remember that 
a polymorphic and mongrel population like ours descends from many 
tributary streams. We are made of fragments of divers races, all in 
their degree contributing their special aptitudes, their special defi- 
ciencies, their particular virtues and vices, and their multifarious 
notions of right and wrong. Many of us have, for instance, the 
monogamous instincts as strong as pigeons, and many of both sexes 
have it no more than fowls. Why should some be ambitious to make 
all think or act alike? It is much better that we should be of many 
sorts, saints, nondescripts, and sinners.’ Again he gives the warning, 
* Before science can claim to have any positive guidance to offer, num- 
bers of untouched problems must be solved.’ ‘For these and other 
reasons I am entirely opposed to the views of those who would sub- 
sidize the families of parents passed as unexceptional. Galton, I 
know, contemplated some such possibility; but if we picture to our- 
selves the kind of persons who would infallibly be chosen as examples 
of “civic worth ”—the term lately used to denote their virtues—the 
prospect is not very attractive. We need not for the present fear any 
scarcity of that class, and I think we may be content to postpone 
schemes for their multiplication.’ 
“Bateson gives an emphatic warning, unpalatable to propogan- 
dists in general and to eugenists in particular, who take for granted 
that the ‘standard of perfection’ is known to them. Every attempt 
to interfere with the course of human breeding except in the segre- 
gation of the ‘hopelessly unfit’ carries with it the implication that 
the end to be desired is obvious, while in reality in such a complex, 
biological, sociological, and economic group as human society the 
opportunity for serious blundering is too obvious to put the future 
‘structure of society’ in such hands. I can not resist the tempta- 
tion for one further quotation from this address, because it makes 
clear a relation that is often overlooked by the novices of the theory 
of natural selection, although Darwin himself fell into no such error 
concerning the ‘survival of the fittest.’ Bateson writes, ‘I lay stress 
on this aspect of the social problem because I have seen several 
times of late the claim put forward that the teaching of biological 
