C 1 6 FRA GMENTS OF SCIENCE. 
under the influence of insanity, the best guidance the 
judge and jury can have is derived from the parental 
antecedents of the accused. If among these insanity be 
exhibited in any marked degree, the presumption in the 
prisoner's favor is enormously enhanced, because the 
experience of life has taught both judge and jury that 
insanity is frequently transmitted, from parent to child. 
I met, some years ago, in a railway carriage the governor 
of one of our largest prisons. He was evidently an ob- 
servant and reflective man, possessed of wide experience 
gathered in various parts of the world, and a thorough 
student of the duties of his vocation. He told me that 
the prisoners in his charge might be divided into three 
distinct classes. The first class consisted of persons who 
ought never to have been in prison. External accident, 
and not internal taint, had brought them within the grasp 
of the law, and what had happened to them might 
happen to most of us. They were essentially men of sound 
moral stamina, though wearing the prison garb. Then 
came the largest class, formed of individuals possessing no 
strong bias, moral or immoral, plastic to the touch of 
circumstances, which could mold them into either good or 
evil members of society. Thirdly came a class happily 
not a large one whom no kindness could conciliate and 
no discipline tame. They were sent into this world 
labeled "incorrigible," wickedness being stamped, as it 
were, upon their organizations. It was an unpleasant 
truth, but as a truth it ought to be faced. For such 
criminals the prison over which he ruled was certainly not 
the proper place. If confined at all, their prison should be 
on a desert island where the deadly contagium of their 
example could not taint the moral air. But the sea itself 
he was disposed to regard as a cheap and appropriate sub- 
stitute for the island. It seemed to him evident that the 
state would benefit if prisoners of the first class were 
liberated; prisoners of the second class educated; and 
prisoners of the third class put compendiously under 
water. 
It is not, however, from the observation of individuals 
that the argument against " free-will," as commonly 
understood, derives its principal force. It is, as already 
hinted, indefinitely strengthened when extended to the 
race. Most of you have been forced to listen to the out- 
