I do not much care to justify the particular word degeneracy in this connection, further than to say that I know of none more convenient or less objectionable. It comes, of course, from _de_ and _genus_ through _degenerare_, and seems to mean primarily the state of having fallen from a type. It is not uncommon in English literature, usually meaning inferiority to the standard set by ancestors, as when we say a degenerate age, a degenerate son, etc.; and recently it has come into use to describe any kind of marked and enduring mental defect or inferiority. I see no objection to this usage unless it be that it is doubtful whether the mentally or morally inferior person can in all cases be said _to have fallen_ from a higher state. This might be plausibly argued on both sides, but it does not seem worth while. I use the phrase personal degeneracy, then, to describe the state of persons whose character and conduct fall distinctly below the type or standard regarded as normal by the dominant sentiment of the group. Although it must be admitted that this definition is a vague one, it is not more so, perhaps, than most definitions of mental or social phenomena. There is no sharp criterion of what is mentally and socially up to par and what is not, but there are large and important classes whose inferiority is evident, such as idiots, imbeciles, the insane, drunkards and criminals; and no one will question the importance of studying the whole of which these are parts. It is altogether a social matter at bottom; that is to say, degeneracy exists only in a certain relation between a person and the rest of a group. In so far as any mental or physical traits constitute it they do so because they involve unfitness for a normal social career, in which alone the essence of the matter is found. The only palpable test of it—and this an uncertain one—is found in the actual career of the person, and especially in the attitude toward him of the organized thought of the group. We agree fairly well upon the degeneracy of the criminal, largely because his abnormality is of so obvious and troublesome a kind that something in particular has to be done about it, and so he becomes definitely and formally stigmatized by the organs of social judgment. Yet even from this decisive verdict an appeal is successfully made in some cases to the wider and maturer thought of mankind, so that many have been executed as felons who, like John Brown, are now revered as heroes. In short, the idea of wrong, of which the idea of degeneracy is a phase, partakes of the same uncertainty that belongs to its antithesis, the idea of right. Both are expressions of an ever-developing, always selective life, and share in the indeterminateness that necessarily goes with growth. They assume forms definite enough for the performance of their momentous practical functions, but always remain essentially plastic and variable.