262 HEREDITY IN RELATION TO EUGENICS 



these explanations are based on the logical error: post hoc 

 ergo propter hoc: and that the cart is often put before the 

 mule. The very multiplicity of explanations shows their in- 

 adequacy. There is a more fundamental explanation for 

 these non-social traits than any of those that are usually 

 ascribed. 



First of all we can see clearly that the traits that cause so 

 much trouble are '' unfortunate '* or '^bad" only in relation 

 to oiu" society, i. e., relatively, not absolutely. Lack of 

 speech, inability to care for the person or to respond in the 

 conventional fashion to the calls of nature, failure to learn 

 the art of dressing and undressing, inability to countj en- 

 tire lack of ambition beyond getting a meal, abject slothful- 

 ness, love of sitting by the hour picking at a piece- of cloth— 

 these are unfortunate traits for a twentieth-century citizen 

 but they constitute a first-rate mental equipment for our re- 

 mote ape-like ancestors, nor do we pity infants, who in- 

 variably have them. So likewise with crimes: — the acts of 

 taking and keeping loose articles, of tearing away obstruc- 

 tions to get at something desired, of picking valuables out of 

 holes and pockets, of assaulting a neighbor who has some- 

 thing desirable or who has caused pain or who is in the 

 way, of deserting family and other relatives, of promiscuous 

 sexual relations — these are crimes for a twentieth-century 

 citizen but they are the normal acts of our remote, ape-like 

 ancestors and (excepting the last) they are so common with 

 infants that we laugh when they do such things. In a word 

 the traits of the feeble-minded and the criminaUstic are nor- 

 mal traits for infants and for an earUer stage in man's evolu- 

 tion. There is an aphorism that biologists use which is apt 

 here — ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. This means that 

 the individual (ontos) in its development passes through 

 stages like those the race (phylum) has traversed in its evolu- 

 tion. The infant represents the ape-like stage. 



