288 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



contrary, consider vaguely the possibility that among 

 the coming members of his family there may be a 

 Shakespeare or a Newton. Dickens, a close observer, 

 pictures Mr. Kenwigs, who may be regarded as fairly 

 typifying the British paterfamilias of a certain class, 

 propounding to himself the momentous query, * If it's 

 a boy, as I hope it may be, . . . will he be Alexander, 

 or Pompey, or Diorgeenes, or what will he be ? ' But 

 the general argument that men should increase and 

 multiply in order that Shakespeares and Newtons may 

 have a fair chance of coming into the world does not, 

 probably, weigh very much with the average Briton. 

 It is not, indeed, altogether clear that even as a general 

 argument it has any specific value ; because assuredly 

 the chance of bringing into the world some notorious 

 malefactor is greater on the whole than that of producing 

 a Goethe or a Shakespeare, a Laplace or a Newton- 

 seeing that great malefactors have appeared in con- 

 siderably larger numbers than great poets or great 

 philosophers. 



The only consideration likely to have any influence 

 with individual members of the community, or there- 

 fore to influence the result at all for the result depends 

 entirely on the action of individuals are those which 

 appeal either to the sense of personal duty, or to the 

 sense of personal interests. All else that has lately 

 been said or written may be exceedingly interesting, 

 just as it is exceedingly interesting to inquire into the 

 effects of gravitation or any other law of nature ; but 

 can have very little practical value, simply because it 



