26 THE CAVENDISH LECTURE 



by the .strain of modern life, is fed up and restored, for a time 

 to his family and to paternity. In our institutions we provide for 

 the deaf-mute, the blind, the cripple, and render it relatively easy 

 for the degenerate to mate and leave their like. In the old days, 

 without these medical benefits and without these social provisions 

 the hand of Nature fell heavily on the unfit. Such were num- 

 bered, as they are largely numbered now, among the unemploy 

 ables ; but there were no doctors to enable them to limp through 

 life ; no charities to take their offspring or provide for their own 

 necessities. A petty theft meant the gallows, unemployment 



General Degeneracy . 



I — I 



•11. .^ Q^ 3.^ 4<| 6^ 6§ 7^ «^ 9^'0<^ "^ 



III. 



IV. 



Fig. 15. — Piseiiti's case from "Treasury of Human Inheritance," 

 showing multiple degeneracies. 



meant starvation, feeble-mindedness meant persecution and social 

 expulsion ; insanity meant confinement with no attempt at treat- 

 ment. To the honour of the medical profession, to the credit ot 

 our social instincts, be it said, we have largely stopped all this. 

 We have held out a helping hand to the weak, but at the same 

 time we have to a large extent suspended the automatic action 

 whereby a race progressed mentally and physically. 



Surely here is an antinomy — a fundamental opposition between 

 medical progress and the science of national eugenics, of race 

 efficiency. Gentlemen, I venture to think it is an antinomy, and 

 will remain one until the nation at large recognises as a funda- 



