vni] HEREDITY IN MAN 117 



It is even said that hospitals and the feeding of 

 destitute school-children are really working in the 

 direction opposite to what is intended, by enabling 

 the degenerate to live and beget families, who under 

 harder conditions would never have survived 1 . If a 

 child is to survive it is undoubtedly better that he 

 should be well fed and cared for, but looking at the 

 matter apart from all sentiment, it is quite possible 

 that posterity will be worse rather than better as a 

 result of such institutions. It is not improbable that 

 future generations will find that our methods for the 

 relief of distress are on wrong lines, and that other 

 means must be found for dealing with the problem, 

 which will cure the evil at its root instead of attempt- 

 ing to alleviate the symptoms. 



Another point at which the study of heredity 

 touches social problems is the treatment of criminals. 

 It is becoming recognised that a large proportion of 

 criminals are in some way abnormal, and that their 

 crimes are due not to evil surroundings nor to wilful 

 perversity, but to inherited defects. If this is 

 actually the case, penal treatment of such is no less 

 cruel than similar treatment of the insane, but in 

 both cases efforts at reclamation or cure, followed 



1 It is of course not suggested that all or even the majority of 

 those \vho receive such help are degenerate, but it can hardly be 

 doubted that a very high proportion of the * unfit ' will take advan- 

 tage of it. 



