I PROLEGOMENA 39 



is very small ; and, generally, the hereditary 

 criminal and the hereditary pauper have propa- 

 gated their kind before the law affects them. 

 In a large proportion of cases, crime and pauper- 

 ism have nothing to do with heredity ; but 

 are the consequence, partly, of circumstances 

 and, partly, of the possession of qualities, which, 

 under different conditions of life, might have 

 excited esteem and even admiration. It was a 

 shrewd man of the world who, in discussing sewage 

 problems, remarked that dirt is riches in the 

 wrong place ; and that sound aphorism has moral 

 applications. The benevolence and open-handed 

 generosity which adorn a rich man, may make a 

 pauper of a poor one ; the energy and courage to 

 which the successful soldier owes his rise, the cool 

 and daring subtlety to which the great financier 

 owes his fortune, may very easily, under unfavour- 

 able conditions, lead their possessors to the 

 gallows, or to the hulks. Moreover, it is fairly 

 probable that the children of a ' failure ' will re- 

 ceive from their other parent just that little 

 modification of character which makes all the 

 difference. I sometimes wonder whether people, 

 who talk so freely about extirpating the unfit, 

 ever dispassionately consider their own history. 

 Surely, one must be very ' fit,' indeed, not to know 

 of an occasion, or perhaps two, in one's life, when 

 it would have been only too easy to qualify for 

 a place among the ' unfit.' 



