SCOPE OF GENETICS 33 



have maintained that nurture not nature, to 

 use Galton's antithesis, has a preponderating 

 influence on our careers; but so soon as it 

 becomes common knowledge — not a philo- 

 sophical speculation, but a certainty — that 

 liability to a disease, or the power of resisting 

 its attack, addiction to a particular vice, or to 

 superstition, is due to the presence or absence 

 of a specific ingredient ; and finally that these 

 characteristics are transmitted to the off- 

 spring according to definite, predicable rules, 

 then man's views of his own nature, his con- 

 ceptions of justice, in short his whole outlook 

 on the world, must be profoundly changed. 

 Yet as regards the more tangible of these 

 physical and mental characteristics there can 

 be little doubt that before many years have 

 passed the laws of their transmission will be 

 expressible in simple formulae. 



The blundering cruelty we call criminal 

 Justice will stand forth divested of natural 



B- 3 



