viii] HEREDITY 115 



child is to survive it is undoubtedly better that he 

 should be well fed and cared for, but looking at the 

 matter apart from all sentiment, it is quite possible 

 that posterity will be worse rather than better as a 

 result of such institutions. It is not improbable that 

 future generations will find that our methods for the 

 relief of distress are on wrong lines, and that other 

 means must be found for dealing with the problem, 

 which will cure the evil at its root instead of attempt- 

 ing to alleviate the symptoms. 



Another point at which the study of heredity 

 touches social problems is the treatment of criminals. 

 It is becoming recognised that a large proportion of 

 criminals are in some way abnormal, and that their 

 crimes are due not to evil surroundings nor to wilful 

 perversity, but to inherited defects. If this is 

 actually the case, penal treatment of such is no less 

 cruel than similar treatment of the insane, but in 

 both cases efforts at reclamation or cure, followed 

 by liberty and encouragement to marry, may only 

 lead to a repetition of the same evils in the next 

 generation. The present teaching of biology is per- 

 fectly clear, that in the case of the evils mentioned 

 above and many others, marriage of those afflicted, 

 and to a less extent of their near relatives, involves 

 a grave risk of transmitting the affection to descen- 

 dants, and so of inflicting serious injury upon society 1 . 



1 See [43]. 



