1 88 A STUDY IN HEREDITY 



value of diseases as deterrents from vice. Clearly 

 diseases do not act as deterrents. They are 

 merely instruments of torture. The fearless and 

 even reckless temper of young men should be 

 remembered. When do they in the pursuit of 

 wealth [i.e. pleasure) refuse to enter India or the 

 West Coast of Africa, where deadly disease is also 

 rife? Is it probable, then, that the risk of disease 

 alone can restrain them from immorality when 

 placed under exceedingly urgent temptation ? It 

 certainly does not. But, unless "social reformers" 

 are able to prove the contrary, what must we think 

 of the party to which they belong, a party directly 

 responsible for more deaths than occur in a great 

 war, for more misery than is caused by foreign 

 conquest ? Must we not conclude that this great 

 holocaust of human lives, this vast flood of human 

 misery, is demanded, not in the interests of morality, 

 since morality is not furthered thereby, but solely 

 through a desire for vengeance, the offspring of a 

 wicked and ferocious fanaticism which recks not 

 that the guiltless perish with the guilty. 



The fear of disease alone is not sufficient to 

 restrain reckless young men from immorality, any 

 more than it restrains them from seeking their 

 fortune among the deadly diseases of India; but 

 it has been made to loom so large before their 

 minds in this country, that moral considerations 



