from the Standpoint of Science 19 



all, for the nation as a whole, it is an idle 

 hope. You cannot change the leopard's 

 spots, and you cannot change bad stock to 

 good ; you may dilute it, possibly spread it 

 over a wider area, spoiling good stock, but 

 until it ceases to multiply it will not cease 

 to be. A physically and mentally well-ordered 

 individual will arise as a variation in bad 

 stock, or possibly may result from special 

 nurture, but the old evils will in all proba- 

 bility reappear in a definite percentage of 

 the offspring. 



I know of the case of just such a good 

 variation appearing in a certain bad stock as 

 far back as 1680, and the offspring of which 

 married in the early eighteenth century into a 

 number of good stocks, several of which we 

 can trace in the records of the religious com- 

 munity of which they were members for 

 nearly 150 years. And what do we find ? In 

 each generation the same sort of proportion 

 of cases of drunkenness, insanity, and physical 

 breakdown arising to distress and perplex 

 their kinsfolk. 



Now, if we once realize that this law of 

 inheritance is as inevitable as the law of 



2 7 



