ON THE PHYSIQUE AND ABILITY OF OFFSPRING 7 



difficulty in suggesting that the feeble-mindedness in the 

 sober stocks is due to the ' general badness ' of the stock, 

 while in the drinking families it is due to the alcohol. The 

 only argument he adduces in favour of this ' general 

 badness ' is the greater prevalence of epilepsy and tubercu- 

 losis among the sober. The humour of this view lies in 

 the fact that these are the very evils which have been 

 repeatedly asserted to flow to the offspring from the 

 alcoholism of the parents ! 



But Mr. Keynes sees something, which Professor 

 Marshall has never seemed to realize properly, that to 

 criticize our results it is absolutely necessary to show 

 a real differentiation between the temperate and intem- 

 perate sections of the population actually dealt with. 

 Mr. Keynes, I say, recognizes this, but makes no attempt 

 whatever to demonstrate its existence ; he merely asserts 

 dogmatically that : " As in the Manchester case, so 07i 

 the whole in the Edinburgh case, the authors are com- 

 paring drunken stock with bad subnormal stock, and find, 

 naturally enough, that there is not much to choose between 

 them." 



Will it be believed that these two distinguished econo- 

 mists make not the slightest endeavour themselves to show 

 from the data that there is any differentiation what- 

 ever between the Edinburgh temperate and intemperate 

 sections ? All they attempt is to show that both sections 

 alike are on a lower plane — than the average working classes 

 of non-manufacturing towns ? — no, merely than what they 

 suppose the w^orking-class population of such towns to be. 

 It does not seem to me that they realize what this class 

 really is, although a study of Rowntree's York and 

 Booth's London might have helped them to a juster 

 view. But if we were to admit that the Edinburgh sample 



