SCIENTIFIC PHILANTHROPY. 489 



futing the theorem that the artificial preservation of those least able 

 to take care of themselves will result in mental and moral deteriora- 

 tion by the operation of heredity. He claims that these biological 

 laws are pushed too far ; that Mr. Spencer's conclusions are still more 

 inadmissible than those of his relative to physical deterioration of 

 society. " If any one denies," Mr. Spencer urges, " that children 

 bear likenesses to their progenitors in character and capacity, if he 

 holds that men, whose parents and grand-parents were habitual crimi- 

 nals, have tendencies as good as those of men whose parents and 

 grand-parents were industrious and upright, he may consistently hold 

 that it matters not from what families in a society the successive gen- 

 erations descend. He may think it just as well if the most active 

 and capable and prudent and conscientious people die without issue, 

 while many children are left by the reckless and dishonest." M. 

 Fouillee does not attempt to refute this conclusion, but denies that it 

 bears against philanthropy itself. Mr. Darwin has brought facts for- 

 ward to prove that our moral qualities are directly due to our ances- 

 tors ; that, for instance, kleptomania or a propensity to lie seemed to 

 run in noble families for several generations, and so could hardly be 

 imputed to any coincidence. The same is equally true of the inherit- 

 ance of that moral quality called character, which, says M. Ribot, 

 " whether individual or national, is the very complex result of physi- 

 ological and psychological laws." The bold and vigorous traits of 

 Puritan character were transmitted to their descendants ; they began 

 with this advantage over the other races that emigrated here ; hence 

 the fineness and purity of their mental and moral fiber evolved, of 

 necessity, more swiftly leaders in peace and in war.* 



On the other hand, it is argued by M. Fouillee that " the two ele- 

 ments which Mr. Spencer and Mr. Darwin have overlooked — education 

 and just legislation — must be reinstated in the problem. He contends 

 that education abrogates the law of heredity ; that good character 

 will result from good education. It has never been satisfactorily ex- 

 plained why education should be the only cure for crime, poverty, and 

 misery. Huxley says, " If I am a knave or a fool, teaching me to 

 read and write will not make me less of either one or the other, unless 

 somebody shows me how to put my reading and writing to good pur- 

 poses, "f The zealous educationist is too apt to forget that the weak 

 and vicious man is fighting single-handed for the mastery over per- 

 haps a score of evil-minded ancestors. "We can make education com- 

 pulsory, but we can not compel the conscience. To suppose that 

 education will supply those inherited faculties of moral intuition that 



* Vide " Data of Ethics," 1883, pp. 191, 192 ; also Mr. Spencer's " American Ad- 

 dress." 



f That rough moralist, Jack Cade, when he learned that the clerk of Chatham had 

 been setting boys copies, said, " Here's a villain ! " Also vide " Study of Sociology," 

 chapter xr. 



