THE JUKES. 65 



basis of commercial contract, honesty carried out and rigidly en- 

 forced. 



It is such a class of employers who are needed to deal with the 

 criminally inclined ; men who understand human nature, rightly 

 estimate the lack of social opportunity which encompasses a popu- 

 lation of "Jukes," and can make allowances for the shortcomings 

 and frailties of a class who are less evil in nature than they are un- 

 trained in conduct. If such prudent persons could be enlisted in the 

 work, they would prove the most efficient of all reformers, because 

 reform would be secured under liberty, the only ultimate test of self- 

 balance. 



1. Tentative Generalizations on Heredity and Environment. 

 Where the organization is structurally modified, as in idiocy and 

 insanity, or organically weak as in many diseases, the heredity is 

 the preponderating factor in determining the career ; but it is, even 

 then, capable of marked modification for better or worse by the 

 character of the environment. In other words, capacity, physical 

 and mental, is limited and determined mainly by heredity. This is 

 probably because it is fixed during the period of ante-natal organiza- 

 tion. 



2. Where the conduct depends on the knowledge of moral 

 obligation (excluding insanity and idiocy), the environment has 

 more influence than the heredity, because the development of the 

 moral attributes is mainly a post-natal and not an ante-natal forma- 

 tion of cerebral cells. The use to which capacity shall be put is 

 largely governed by the impersonal training or agency of environ- 

 ment, which is itself very variable. 



3. The tendency of heredity is to produce an environment which 

 perpetuates that heredity : thus, the licentious parent makes an ex- 

 ample which greatly aids in fixing habits of debauchery in the child. 

 The correction is change of environment. For instance, where 

 hereditary kleptomania exists, if the environment should be such as 

 to become an exciting cause, the individual will be an incorrigible 

 thief ; but if, on the contrary, he be protected from temptation, that 

 individual may lead an honest life, with some chances in favor of 

 the entailment stopping there. 



