120 Heredity and Environment 



ever know exactly how a complex society should be 

 composed, and how we ought to lead up to its proper 

 composition — whether we shall ever get that degree of 

 knowledge I know not ; but the idea that you can get a 

 society of the most perfect kind by merely considering 

 questions about the strain and ancestry, and the health 

 and physical vigour of the various components of that 

 society — that, I believe, is a most shallow view of a 

 most difficult question." 



Mr. Balfour has fathomed the shallowness of the 

 views in regard to heredity which have held sway too 

 long. Strain and heredity will trouble us no longer, for 

 the reason that we know the species only requires a 

 perfect environment to secure the best possible indi- 

 vidual units physically and intellectually, and, at the 

 same time, by conceding full play to that spiritual 

 evolution which is working and will continue to work 

 with ever-increasing power, to enable it to accomplish 

 marvels in its operation upon the sum of those units 

 which we denominate society. All we require to 

 seek after is the evolution of a better and better en- 

 vironment, and all other things, such as the " elimina- 

 tion of the unfit," will be added thereunto. 



A good deal has been written in regard to the Galton 

 Laboratory conclusions from the Edinburgh statistics, 

 endeavouring to prove that the children of parents in 

 slum surroundings are not prejudicially affected by the 

 heredity of alcohol. It is not endeavoured to prove 

 that the alcoholic habit in the parent is beneficial ; it 

 only suggests that most probably the parent who can 

 take alcohol in large quantity is of stronger physique 

 than the parent who cannot. But, as a rule, the alcoholic 

 propensity is one absolutely regardless of consequences 

 — the sole desire of the alcoholic is to secure the 

 pleasures of approaching intoxication, which is craved 

 for just as often by the weakly as the strong. The real 



