92 BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF HUMAN PROBLEMS 



greater leniency towards acts not in accord with 

 our own views. Such acts we shall learn to refer 

 with some confidence to the various factors which 

 find expression in them. The fixed elements in 

 these acts we shall learn to accept, but at the same 

 time we shall recognize the possibility of preventing 

 their recurrence by means of legitimate interference. 

 The use of adequate and temperate correctives in 

 place of vindictive and revengeful methods of pun- 

 ishment should be a result of a better insight into 

 the causes of undesirable conduct. The attitude of 

 parents toward children and of society toward 

 criminals could be greatly improved by enlightened 

 biological and philosophical training. The note- 

 worthy change in feeling in relation to the insane is 

 a good example of what can be accomplished through 

 the growth of a humane scientific conception. 



A position of enlightened and scientific fatalism 

 which takes account of the wonderful plasticity of 

 the brain in respect to reactions and impressions or 

 engrams must ultimately soften the over-rigid ideas 

 of right and wrong which still prevail. The human 

 automaton is dominated by two fundamental in- 

 stincts the self -preservative and the sexual. There 

 are few persons whose instincts in these direc- 

 tions do not require to be regulated and inhibited at 

 some period of their lives. In our age, a very large 

 proportion of all the miseries of life and nearly all 

 the crimes are traceable to perversions of one or 

 both of these instincts, which continually crop out 



