THE METHOD OF EUGENICS 9 



question of definition, and if experts be called in to give a 

 definition the situation is rendered only worse. Thus one 

 expert will define a feeble-minded person as one incapable 

 of protecting his life against the ordinary hazards of civili- 

 zation, but this is very vague and the test is constantly 

 changing. For a person may be quick-witted enough to 

 avoid being run over by a horse and carriage but not quick 

 enough to escape an automobile. A second expert will 

 define a feeble-minded person as one who cannot meet all 

 (save two) of the Binet test for three years below his own; 

 if he fail in one only he is no longer feeble-minded. But 

 this definition seems to me socially insufiicient just because 

 there are moral imbeciles who can answer all but the moral 

 question for their proper age. Every attempt to classify 

 persons into a limited number of mental categories ends 

 unsatisfactorily. 



The facts seem to be rather that no person possesses all 

 of the thousands of unit traits that are possible and that 

 are known in the species. Some of these traits we are better 

 off without but the lack of others is a serious handicap. If 

 we place in the feeble-minded class every person who lacks 

 any known mental trait we extend it to include practically 

 all persons. If we place there only those who lack some 

 trait desirable in social life, again our class is too inclusive. 

 Perhaps the best definition would be: "deficient in some 

 socially important trait" and then the class would include 

 (as perhaps it should) also the sexually immoral, the crim- 

 inaUstic, those who cannot control their use of narcotics, 

 those who habitually tell Ues by preference, and those who 

 run away from school or home. If from the term ''feeble- 

 minded" we exclude the sexually immoral, the criminal- 

 istic, and the narcotics such a restriction carried out into 

 practice would greatly reduce the population of institutions 

 for that class. Thus one sees that a full and free recogni- 



