Heredity, Variation a?id Genius 89 



of it. They are defects which, as before said, 

 go along with instances of singular proficience in 

 other members of the same family. That is a fact 

 not only demonstrated by general observation 

 exhaustive enough to include the history of the 

 generations of such a family, but in happy accord 

 with Mendelian principles of heredity, which show 

 that it is quite possible, two pure germs meeting 

 in fertilization, to breed a pure character from 

 a stock in which there is an impure strain, or by 

 selective interbreeding to add a required quality 

 to the product. Were it only possible, in accord- 

 ance with such principles of segregation of 

 characters, to treat sanity and insanity, or morality 

 and immorality, as unit-characters, one dominant 

 and the other recessive, the optimistic breeder 

 might set joyfully to work to breed a strain of 

 pure sanity or pure morality, getting such help 

 as he could from the constant tendency of nature 

 to preserve stability of the species by a return 

 to the average, which unfortunately is not yet 

 perfectly sane nor moral. 



When all is said, nature has its due compensa- 

 tions and works out its ends inexorably in its own 

 steady way, supremely regardless of mortal fates. 

 The exultations of those who shout with joy in the 

 procession and the outcries and protests of those 

 who are crushed in it, are alike notes in its 

 immense orchestra. The genius is a present 

 value to the species and is used for all he is 

 worth : what matters it if in the chances of his 



