CHAP, xvin A "FAIRY TALE OF SCIENCE"? 257 



reasoning from facts, or from a mixture of facts and 

 theories, and a deduction of doubtful logical cohe- 

 rence. Scientific friends inform me that there is great 

 division of opinion among men of authority 1 on the 

 question how panmixia must work out. Will it mean 

 continuous retrogression? Will it reach an average 

 mediocrity and stop there ? Will it mean a divergence 

 into two or more distinct types? Doctors differ. 

 Surely then Mr. Kidd has planted his feet on a 

 second slippery stone. As a matter of obvious prob- 

 abilities one does not see how continuous embodi- 

 ment of the stable germ plasm of to-day should or 

 could mean continuous degeneration and progressive 

 inefficiency. On a first glance, at any rate, that 

 view seems absurd. And the division of opinion 

 among biological experts emboldens one to break 

 away from the dogmatism of Professor Weismann 

 and Mr. Kidd. 



1 Professor Baldwin, the psychologist, refuses, for one, to admit 

 Weismann's theory of necessary retrogression. 



