422 HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 



showing it themselves. It will be more diffi- 

 cult, perhaps an impossible thing, to apply 

 rigidly the principles of good breeding to such 

 persons and to exclude them from reproduc- 

 tion ; but if in each generation those persons in 

 whom this recessive trait appears are prevented 

 from leaving offspring the number of persons 

 affected will gradually grow less, other condi- 

 tions being equal. 



But while such negative eugenical measures 

 are wholly commendable when applied to such 

 defects as those named, which are certainly in- 

 herited and which render those affected unfit 

 for citizenship, the wholesale sterilization of 

 all sorts of criminals, alcoholics and undesir- 

 ables without determining whether their de- 

 fects are due to heredity or to conditions of 

 development would be like burning down a 

 house to get rid of the rats; and the only 

 justification which could be offered for the 

 general sterilization of the inmates of all pub- 

 lic institutions, which is urged by some of our 

 modern crusaders, would be the defense which 

 some persons make for war, that there are 

 too many people anyway and anything which 



