HUMAN CONSERVATION 483 
Or, take another example. Elizabeth Tuttle, the grandmother of 
Jonathan Edwards whose remarkable progeny was referred to in a 
preceding chapter, is described as a “‘woman of great beauty, of tall 
and commanding appearance, striking carriage, of strong will, extreme 
intellectual vigor and mental grasp akin to rapacity,”’ but with an 
extraordinary deficiency in moral sense. She was divorced from her 
husband “on the ground of adultery and other immoralities. ... . 
The evil trait was in the blood, for one of her sisters murdered her 
own son and a brother murdered his own sister.” That Jonathan 
Edwards owed his remarkable qualities largely to his grandmother 
rather than to his grandfather is shown by the fact that Richard 
Edwards, the grandfather, married again after his divorce and had 
five sons and one daughter, but none of their numerous progeny “rose 
above mediocrity, and their descendants gained no abiding reputa- 
tion.” As shown by subsequent events, it would have been a great 
eugenic mistake to have deprived the world of Elizabeth Tuttle’s 
germplasm, although it would have been easy to find judges to con- 
demn her. 
Dr. C. V. Chapin recently said with reference to the eugenic 
regulation of marriage by physician’s certificate: ‘‘The causes of 
heredity are many and very conflicting. The subject isa difficult one, 
and I for one would hesitate to say, in a great many cases where I have 
a pretty good knowledge of the family, where marriage would, or 
would not, be desirable.” 
Desirability and undesirability must always be regarded as rela- 
tive terms more or less indefinable. In attempting to define them, it 
makes a great difference whether the interested party holds to a 
puritan or a cavalier standard. To show how far human judgment 
may err as well as how radically human opinion changes, there were in 
England, as recently as 1819, 233 crimes punishable by death accord- 
ing to law. 
One needs only to recall the days of the Spanish Inquisition or of 
the Salem witchcraft persecution to realize what fearful blunders 
human judgment is capable of, but it is unlikely that-the world will 
ever see another great religious inquisition, or that in applying to man 
the newly found laws of heredity there will ever be undertaken an 
equally deplorable eugenic inquisition. 
It is quite apparent, finally, that although great caution and 
broadness of vision must be exercised in bringing about the fulfilment 
of the highest eugenic ideals, nevertheless in this direction lies the 
future path of human achievement. 
