1 24 Heredity and Environment 



the modern intellect. Herbert Spencer was so delicate 

 as to be unable to receive a regular education, yet he 

 became one of the most potent forces of his generation. 

 Sir Isaac Newton similarly was one of the frailest of 

 children. The conclusion of this epoch-making address 

 is deserving of continual repetition : " Nearly all 

 children are well born. With a wider knowledge of 

 hygiene, a better distribution of wealth and leisure, and 

 a higher sense of personal responsibility on the part of 

 the parents, the problem of heredity from the physical 

 point of view would practically vanish. The tragedy of 

 the world was spoiled babies." 



Dr. Devine, of New York, strongly supported his 

 compatriot. What was wrong, he said, with those who 

 were giving trouble to society was not that they were of 

 a defective ancestry, or had some evil in their blood, 

 but that they had not had a fair or decent opportunity. 



Prince Kropotkin poured a wealth of satire upon the 

 crude idea of the sterilisation of the unfit. Who were 

 the people they proposed to sterilise ? he asks. The 

 idlers or the workers ? The women of the working 

 classes who suckled their children, or the women of the 

 upper classes who, by neglecting to do this, showed 

 their unfitness for maternity ? Those who produced 

 degenerates in slums, or those who produced them in 

 palaces ? 



On the whole, the impression left on the mind by the 

 trend of thought of the Congress fills one with deep 

 satisfaction. In addition to the views expressed as to 

 the all-importance of a perfect environment and the 

 cessation of the undue preponderance formerly conceded 

 to heredity, there is evidenced on the part of men of 

 the widest thought, culture, and scientific attainment 

 a recognition of the lesson of history, and the spiritual 

 evolution underlying all advance, and compelling the 

 steady march on to the city of God. It was with the 



