"Speaking broadly," he said, "it is generally conceded now that the races of mankind have progressed and improved along the same lines as plants and animals. We believe in improvement through the survival of the fittest and the general tendencies of the fit to pass on their qualities through heredity. It seems to me, however, that the world has come to centre too much attention upon the matter of recent heredity in the sense of regarding it as an absolutely dominant factor which must, of necessity, determine, in the main, the bodily and mental tendencies of the individual. Of course tendencies are inherited, but observant and thinking men are coming to recognise more and page 73 more the fact that hereditary tendencies can be overcome by environment in the great majority of cases, and can always be greatly modified by suitable conditions of life and training. Nothing is worse for an individual than to come to the conclusion that, because for a generation or so his forebears may happen to have been leading unhealthy lives, therefore he must of necessity be more of less unhealthy himself.

"Curiously enough, while too much attention has been focussed upon imperfect heredity as implying an inevitable Nemesis, we have centred our efforts during the last fifty years mainly upon bolstering up the unfit. Perhaps I should rather say, not that we have devoted too much attention to the unfit, but that we have given insufficient attention to the fit, for whom we could do so much more.