[23] Including even such an exceptional student as Dr. George Newman, who, in his book on _Infant Mortality_, regards a falling birth-rate as an essential evil, and actually declares without qualification that the factors “which lower the birth-rate tend to raise the infant death-rate.” [24] It is not necessary to point out again the exception of the elephant, nor to explain it. [25] Mr. Galton believes their number has been exaggerated. [26] Quoted from the author's lectures on _Individualism and Collectivism_ (Williams and Norgate, 1906). [27] As is usually the case, except when the mother or the father is alcoholic or syphilitic. [28] If we make a diagram of society, with the social strata labelled, and then proceed to make a eugenic comment upon it, certainly the line dividing the sheep from the goats, _as for parenthood_, would not be horizontal, at any level. Nor would it be vertical--as if the proportions of worth and unworth were the same in all classes. Some would draw it diagonally, counting most of the aristocracy good and most of the lowest strata bad: others would slope it the other way. I should not venture to draw it at all: there are individuals good and bad in all classes and races, and their relative proportions are unknown, at least to me. [29] “For words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them; but they are the money of fools” (Hobbes, _Leviathan_, Pt. I. chap iv.). [30] It might be supposed that the words “inherent” and “inherited” were allied etymologically. This is not so. “Inherit” is derived from “heir,” and this from a verb meaning “to take.” In natural inheritance the heir inherits what is inherent in the germ-cells which make him. Says Professor Thomson: “The organisation of the fertilised ovum is the inheritance”--_and the heir_, we may add. [31] Unless indeed it be an organism so lowly as only to consist of one cell throughout. [32] The reader will remember the chapter, “A Berry to the Rescue.” “Says Lucy demurely: ‘Now you know why I read history, and that sort of books.... I only read sensible books and talk of serious things ... because I have heard say ... dear Mrs. Berry! don't you understand now?’” [33] Contrast Mr. Galton, the propounder of the now accepted view:-- “As a general rule, with scarcely any exception that cannot be ascribed to other influences, such as bad nutrition or transmitted microbes, the injuries or habits of the parents are found to have no effect on the natural form or faculties of the child.” (_Hereditary Genius_, Prefatory Chapter to the Edition of 1892, p. xv.) [34] In the later edition Mr. Galton discusses the question of the title, and says that if it could now be altered, it should appear as _Hereditary Ability_. We may note that, as the author says himself, “The reader will find a studious abstinence throughout the work from speaking of genius as a special quality.”