INTRODUCTORY. ^ 



decided that marriage should not be thought of, there 

 is the still larger class of those in whom the taint is 

 so mitigated, that, with a properly selected partner, a 

 fairly healthy family might be reared, and to this very 

 large class instruction is of the utmost importance. 

 These must be taught that their only safety depends 

 upon their selection of partners, and that it is only by 

 strict attention to this that those bearing within their 

 nature the germ of hereditary disease, or tendency 

 thereto, can hope to be represented in remote posterity. 

 If such a tainted one choose a partner from a family 

 free from his own taint, or, better still, free from any 

 marked hereditary taint, all may be well; but if he 

 marry a person having the same abnormal bent, belong- 

 ing to the same distorted offshoot from the normal 

 stem to which he himself belongs, then disaster will 

 surely fall upon the luckless children called into being. 

 It is a question how far the present evil state of 

 things should be allowed to go before the strong arm 

 of the law should interfere. At present, save only the 

 idiot and the raving maniac, who are in the eye of the 

 law unable to make a contract binding on themselves, 

 there is no one so diseased, crippled, or deformed that 

 he or she may not marry, and become the parent of a 

 suffering, helpless family, so far as the law is concerned. 

 Even if, during a " lucid interval," a lunatic contracts 

 a marriage, it is valid, unless at the time there happens 

 to exist an unrevoked commission of lunacy. Can any 

 one assert that this state of things is for the good of 

 the commonwealth ? 



