the fact that the mentally and physically fit have emigrated to the
great industrial centres, leaving the unfit to procreate the race.

[28] "Whether germinal variations," remarked Dr. R.J. Ryle at a
Conference on Feeble-mindedness (_British Medical Journal_, October 3,
1911), "be expressed by cleft palate, cataract, or cerebral deficiency
of the pyramidal cells in the brain cortex, they may be produced, and,
when once produced, they are reproduced as readily as the perfected
structure of the face or eye or brain, if the gametes which contain
these potentialities unite to form the ovum. But Nature is not only the
producer. Given a fair field and no favour, natural selection would
leave no problem of the unfit to perplex the mind of man who looks
before and after. This we know cannot be, and we know, too, that we have
no longer the excuse of ignorance to cover the neglect of the new duties
which belong to the present epoch of civilization. We know now that we
have to deal with a growing group in our community who demand permanent
care and control as well for their own sakes as for the welfare of the
community. All are now agreed on the general principle of segregation,
but it is true that something more than this should be forthcoming. The
difficulties of theory are clearing up as our wider view obtains a
firmer grasp of our material, but the difficulties of practice are still
before us." These remarks correspond with the general results reached by
the Royal Commission on the Feeble-minded, which issued its voluminous
facts and conclusions in 1908.

[29] See, for instance, A.F. Tredgold, _Mental Deficiency_, 1908.

[30] The investigation of Bezzola showing that the maxima in the
conception of idiots occur at carnival time, and especially at the
vintage, has been held (especially by Forel) to indicate that alcoholism
of the parents at conception causes idiocy in the offspring. It may be
so. But it may also be that the licence of these periods enables the
defective members of the community to secure an amount of sexual
activity which they would be debarred from under normal conditions. In
that case the alcoholism would merely liberate, and not create, the
idiocy-producing mechanism.

[31] Godden, _Eugenics Review_, April, 1911.

[32] Feeble-mindedness and the other allied variations are not always
exactly repeated in inheritance. They may be transmuted in passing from
father to son, an epileptic father, for instance, h