=The insane.=--As regards obvious _insanity_, the same principles of negative eugenics must be enforced. It is probably fair to say that the whole trend of modern research has been to accentuate the importance, if not indeed the indispensableness, of the inherent or inherited factor in the production of insanity. Yet, on the other hand, the trend of treatment of the insane has undoubtedly been towards permitting them more liberty, sometimes of the kind which the principles of race-culture must condemn. It is well, of course, that we should be humane in our treatment of the insane. It is well that curative medicine should do its utmost for them, and it seems well, at first sight, that the proportion of discharges from asylums on the score of recovery should be as high as it is. But at this point the possibility of the gravest criticism evidently arises. I have no intention whatever of exposing the question of race-culture to legitimate criticism by laying down dogmatically any doctrines as to the perpetual incarceration of insane persons, including those who have been, but are not now, insane. Pope was, of course, right when he hinted at the nearness of the relation between _certain forms_ of genius and certain forms of insanity. It may well be that if we could provide a fit environment we might welcome the children of some of those, highly and perhaps uniquely gifted in brain, who, under the stress of the ordinary environment of modern life, have broken down for shorter or longer periods. On the other hand, there are forms of insanity which, beyond all dispute, should utterly preclude their victims from parenthood. As a result of recent controversies it seems on the whole probable, if not certain, that the apparent persistent increase in the proportion of the insane in civilised countries generally during many years past, is a real increase, and not due simply to such factors as more stringent certification or increase of public confidence in lunatic asylums. If, then, there be in process a real increase in the proportion of the insane, who will question that no time should be lost in ascertaining the extent--undoubtedly most considerable--to which the principles of negative eugenics can be invoked in order to arrest it? As regards _epilepsy_ and _epileptic insanity_ there can be no question. There is, of course, such a thing as acquired epilepsy, and we may even assume for the sake of the argument that no inherent and therefore transmissible factor of predisposition is involved in such cases. Yet, wholly excluding them, there remains the vast majority of cases in which epilepsy and epileptic insanity are unquestionably germinal in origin, and therefore transmissible. The principle of negative eugenics cannot too soon be applied here.