286 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



unsound, tended primarily to encourage matrimony, 

 and still more, if it tended to discourage immorality, I 

 should not care to indicate its unsoundness ; though I 

 have always maintained that the student of science 

 should set truth above all other considerations. But I 

 take it that of all possible resources for those of tainted 

 or feeble constitution, of strongly criminal tastes, or of 

 insane tendencies, matrimony is, on the whole, the 

 most objectionable, so far as the community at large is 

 concerned. If a consumptive person could add ten 

 years to his life by marrying, he might also add ten 

 consumptive persons to the next generation, and who 

 shall say how widely the taint would spread in later 

 years. The criminal is hardly likely to be influenced 

 by other than selfish considerations ; but most certainly 

 the community has no reason to desire that he should 

 be encouraged to increase and multiply criminality. 

 As for a person who inherits a tendency to insanity, 

 and knows it, such a one, if he entertains while still 

 sane the thought of marrying, is a criminal of deepest 

 dye, and the worst possible thing that can happen to 

 the community is that his insanity should delay to 

 manifest itself until the taint has spread to his inno- 

 cent offspring. 



But the scientific objection to Dr. Drysdale's 

 reasoning is that it is statistically unsound. 



Echo. 



