250 THE LIMITATIONS OF SCIENCE 



fourteen, could pick out, with the least chance of suc- 

 cess, those who should be kept, as certain to be service- 

 able members of the polity, and those who should be 

 chloroformed, as equally sure to be stupid, idle, or 

 vicious. The * points ' of a good or bad citizen are 

 really far harder to discern than those of a puppy or a 

 short-horn calf; many do not show themselves before 

 the practical difficulties of life stimulate manhood to 

 full assertion. The evil stock, if it be one, has had time 

 to multiply, and selection is nullified." 



Instead of a sober and careful study, with a full 

 realization of the almost hopeless difficulties of the 

 problem, we have a number of people, mostly of a very 

 restricted outlook, who say with conviction that man is 

 mentally defective, man is diseased, man is criminal. 

 And they say vaguely, these misfortunes must be 

 stopped. But how is any one of these to be remedied 

 or how are we to weigh or balance them ? A man may 

 be a criminal and otherwise a perfect physical creat- 

 ure; a man may be diseased and yet be intellectually 

 and morally a giant ; in fact, Lombroso claims that all 

 those we most reverence for morality or intellect were 

 diseased and quite unfit to be progenitors of the race. 

 And while this doctrine of Lombroso, that intellectual 

 and moral genius is a symptom of physical degeneracy, 

 is a monstrous falsehood, yet it is certain that those 

 who possess great powers themselves frequently do not 

 transmit their excellent qualities. And these are only 



