542 The American Naturalist. rye 
that these abnormalities are anatomically and physiologically irregu- 
lar. The brain, the seat of the moral function is involved as well as 
bone, nerve and tissue. I have said nothing of color (pallor) of the 
hair, of cutaneous insensibility, of the form and shape of the extremi- 
ties, and of numerous other abnomalities. I think that I have proven 
that the recidivist is not “like every other man.” I promised in the 
beginning of this paper that I would not enter the domain of meta- 
physics. I have, in another article, fully discussed this branch of the 
subject. I cannot refrain, however, from noticing several of the For- 
um writer’s statements. His whole paper is made up of assertions, the 
basis of which are founded on personal beliefs. It is the old story of 
religion against science ; the old mistake of separating mind and brain 
matter, when, in a measure, the two are identical. I am not an Aver- 
roist, nor am I a believer in the doctrines of emanation and absorption. 
But I do believe, (and this belief can be proven to be correct), that 
wherever there are receptive ganglia, whether in organisms high or 
low in the scale of animal life, there this element of the brain, which 
the Greeks called Psyche, enters in. The Forum writer says that he 
does not believe that the moral function is an inherited one. Does he 
believe that man sprang into existence fully endowed with all the men- 
tal attributes we find in him at the present time? Does he deny the 
fact that mind has undergone evolution and development since the 
time of our pithecoid ancestors?, Does he mean to maintain that the 
brain of an infant born to-day is no further developed than was that 
of one born twenty thousand years ago? Would he have us believe 
that the moral function is no further developed in us than it was in the 
ancient Britons, or than it is in the autocthon of Australia? That 
morals are, to a certain extent, dependent on education, I do not for 
one instant deny, but that they are wholly so, no one, who knows the 
negro and the results of a hundred years of moral education expended 
on him, will for one instant affirm. I take the American negro simply 
because he is a convenient example. Morals are the result of evolu- 
tionary development, of inherited experiences, as much so as any 
other inherited function. The laws of atavism, of reversion to ances- 
types, and of inheritance apply to the mind as well as the body. 
We cannot place morals, a purely mental function, on a pedestal by 
themselves and write beneath them “Cave! Deus Sum.” Says the 
Forum writer: “The moment that he understands that ‘ honesty is 
the best policy * the average professional criminal becomes honest.” 
As I have said before, in the first part of this paper, the Forum writer 
does not discriminate when speaking of criminals. Now this state- 
