It is the nature of the human mind, working through social organization, to form norms or standards in every department of life, and to stigmatize whatever falls below these. Such norms are applied with peculiar emphasis to human personality itself, and to the various kinds of behavior in which it is expressed, because these are the matters in which we are most interested. Whether our judgments will prove to be permanently right or only a kind of moral fashion, it is impossible to be sure. It seems to be understood, however, that the word degeneration is used only with reference to standards which are believed to be of a relatively permanent or well-grounded kind, so that it is hard to imagine that the implied judgment could be wholly reversed. A man would hardly be called degenerate for dressing in the fashion of ten years ago, however absurd he might appear; but feeble-mindedness, disloyalty, cruelty, irresponsibility, or gross dissipation might be so called, since it would seem that these must always be detrimental to the common life. It is useful to distinguish between definite and indefinite degeneracy, the former being such as is ascertainable in some recognized way, as by medical examination or legal process—for example, idiocy, crime, and alcoholism. The indefinite sort, such as dishonesty, selfishness, instability of character, and sensuality—of kinds within the law—may be strongly condemned although not ascertainable in the same way. Indeed this latter may well be the more harmful, because it is less stigmatized and isolated, more likely to mingle in the social current and exert a pernicious influence. A feeble-minded person who is legally recognized as such and put in a special institution is harmless compared with one not so recognized who remains in the world to demoralize others and breed a family of incompetent children; and in like manner the out-and-out housebreakers and assassins do far less harm than the men of ability and influence whose deeds are no better but who are clever enough to escape a definite stigma.