68 THE KALLIKAK FAMILY 



the conclusion that drunkenness is, to a certain extent 

 at least, the result of feeble-mindedness and that one 

 way to reduce drunkenness is first to determine the 

 mentally defective people, and save them from the 

 environment which would lead them into this abuse. 



Again, eight of the descendants of the degenerate 

 Kallikak branch were keepers of houses of ill fame, and 

 that in spite of the fact that they mostly lived in a rural 

 community where such places do not flourish as they do 

 in large cities. 



In short, whereas in the Jukes-Edwards comparison 

 we have no sound basis for argument, because the fam- 

 ilies were utterly different and separate, in the Kallikak 

 family the conclusion seems thoroughly logical. We 

 have, as it were, a natural experiment with a normal 

 branch with which to compare our defective side. We 

 have the one ancestor giving us a line of normal people 

 that shows thoroughly good all the way down the gen- 

 erations, with the exception of the one man who was 

 sexually loose and the two who gave way to the appe- 

 tite for strong drink. 



This is our norm, our standard, our demonstration of 

 what the Kallikak blood is when kept pure, or mingled 

 with blood as good as its own. 



Over against this we have the bad side, the blood of 



