is found adequate to explain all eccentrici- 

 ties of French literature, art, politics, or 

 jurisprudence. 



But in fact we have no knowledge of the 

 existence of such a thing as nerve-stress in- 

 heritance. In any event, the peasantry of 

 France have not been subjected to it. Their 

 life is hard, no doubt, but not stressful ; and 

 they suffer more from nerve-sluggishness 

 than from any form of enforced psychical 

 activity. The kind of degeneration Nordau 

 pictures is not a matter of heredity. When 

 not simply personal eccentricity, it is a phase 

 of personal decay. It finds its causes in bad 

 habits, bad training, bad morals, or in the 

 desire to catch public attention for personal 

 advantage. It has no permanence in the 

 blood of the race. The presence on the 

 Paris boulevards of a mob of crazy painters, 

 maudlin musicians, drunken poets, and sen- 

 sation-mongers, proves nothing as to race 

 degeneracy. When the fashion changes, 

 they will change also. Already the fad of 

 "strenuous life " is blowing them away. Any 

 man of any race withers in an atmosphere 

 of vice, absinthe, and opium. The presence 



The 



Human 



Harvest 



[49] 



