A considerable proportion of the young which are produced as a new generation of either plants or animals are not merely unlike their parents in some small particulars of colour, proportion, activity, and so on, but are, as compared with the normal or usual standard of the species, “defective”; that is to say, they are wanting in some organ or part, as though maimed, or by some cause restricted or reduced in regard to that part. This occurs in human beings, and in domesticated animals more obviously than in wild animals and plants, for two reasons: firstly, because in wild conditions the defective young die off very early in the struggle for existence and so escape human observation; whereas man protects his own “defective” young, and often, also, those of domesticated animals, so that they are allowed to “grow up” more or less; secondly, such defective structure appearing at birth, and therefore called “congenital,” is carried on by heredity, more or less completely, should the defective animal or plant be allowed to breed. Such breeding of defective individuals is prevented in wild nature by their early destruction; their defects cause their early death by unfitting them for the competition and struggle which are in natural conditions rigidly severe. Only a few survive among the many thousands of each species born into conditions of limited food and space—conditions which are not sufficient to support more than a very small number so as to enable them to reach the adult or breeding stage of life. But man, on the contrary, protects his own young, and often those of his domesticated animals and plants, from this destructive competition, and thus allows those which are to a certain extent defective to breed.

The official returns of the Registrar-General record every year a proportion of deaths of infants which are entered as due to “congenital defects.” These defects are of many and various kinds. A frequent “congenital defect” is one which does not necessarily cause death, namely, the imperfection of the wonderfully elaborate organ of sight, rendering it useless. Children often are born blind, and so are a certain proportion of each species of animal normally provided with eyes—dogs, horses, cattle, birds, fish. Even insects, lobsters, and crabs are in quite considerable and definite number born blind. The inborn or congenital defects of the eyes which result in blindness are of several kinds. The whole of the eyeball or eye-structure may be atrophied, that is to say, dwindled and incomplete, or one essential part only may be defective, and the rest quite well-formed; or, again, the nerves connecting the eye with the brain or the several parts of the brain concerned in the function of sight may, one or more of them, be defective. Wild animals born in this condition must perish, except when they happen to be born in caverns or in the deep sea. Then they are no worse off than animals with “good” eyes. But the animals with good eyes, or even with only somewhat defective eyes, will follow up the gleams of light which in moving about they have the fortune to encounter, and so will escape from the cavern or dark depths of the sea, leaving behind in the dark only those with defective eyes. These will breed together, and perpetuate their defective eyes in a more and more marked degree in successive generations. Always those which can see, or see only a little, will leave the dark place, and so at last there will be a race of animals established in such places with defective eyes (as in the ocean, at a depth of two thousand fathoms, and in the great caves of Europe, and notably in the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, U.S.A.), and often the eyes will altogether disappear. This, however, is a digression.

The cause of congenital defect in eyes is not obvious. The failure of the germinal substance of the reproductive egg or particle detached from parents with sound eyes, to unfold itself—to develop—into a creature with sound eyes like those of its parents, is apparently due, in some instances, to one cause, and in other instances to other causes, of none of which can it be said that we have a satisfactory and comprehensive knowledge. The same want of full knowledge exists in regard to the causation of other congenital defects. These are as numerous and varied as the parts of the body which may be from birth onwards, in one instance or another, distorted, devoid of some essential inner structure, swollen to great size, or shrunken, or even absent altogether. Such defects are sometimes caused by mechanical pressure or nipping in early stages of growth before birth, but there are many which cannot be accounted for in that way. The wonder really is not that the inconceivably complex structure of higher animals should sometimes fail, in this or that part, to develop in due course from the simple-looking germ, destitute of visible structure, but that it should, on the contrary, so regularly and completely come off successfully in millions of instances every day. We can imagine or suggest disturbing agencies which may be the causes of failure, but it is very difficult to demonstrate with certainty the causes which have been at work in each and every case.

One result of failure of the germ to “grow up” into the perfect likeness of its parents is that it may “throw back,” as the breeders say, and resemble in this or that quality a remote, even an extremely remote, ancestor. It is suggested by some inquirers that the congenital or inborn defect, frequent in human beings, which is called “feeble-mindedness” is a reversion or throw-back to the condition of the brain in the animal ancestors of man. That is possible, and, in view of some cases, seems probable. But it must be noted that we do not know what are the causes which favour throwing-back, or “atavism,” as it is called, in regard to all sorts of structures, and that the mechanical conditions connected with the growth of the cavity of the skull in which the brain itself grows are so very elaborate that it is obvious that a very slight disturbance of one element or another might arrest or turn aside the growth of that vastly complex organ, which has become so much larger and more delicate in man than in the animals from which he has, at no remote period in the history of life on the earth, taken his origin.

Mankind have always within the period of written records (a mere trifle in the lapse of time since man became man) regarded mental defect and aberration as due to fantastic causes. To this day we use the word “lunatic” for one of the two typical forms of mental aberration: we imply that the moon is concerned in its production. The other form of brain-failure has appropriated the term “idiot,” which, it is surprising to find, was less than two centuries ago applied in common speech to any person who was characterised by independence of judgment. The term “softy” is a common and really more suitable term for this class, whilst “cracked” is the word applied to a lunatic. The notion that mental aberration is due to “possession” by evil spirits, which can be expelled and the patient accordingly cured, was prevalent a century ago, and the belief is common at the present day (though quite erroneous) that people “go mad” in virtue of some immaterial and unaccountable influence, and may therefore “go sane” again. The lunacy laws and the laws relating to the care of the feeble-minded in this country are admitted to be tainted with ignorance and misconception, and both are in process of correction by the Government of the day.

The approved professional terms used in distinguishing the varieties of “the mind diseased” are not accepted with much favour by the public, and it is unnecessary to introduce them here. The important fact is that persons of diseased mind may be separated into two groups—(a) the idiots or softies, and (b) the lunatics or cracked people. The idiotic group are those with a defective amount or quality of brain substance (whether the skull itself is small or abnormally distended by “water on the brain”), and are more or less incapable of being educated. They are often subject to epileptic fits, and are usually weakly in build, though they sometimes have great muscular strength. The “feeble-minded,” of whom so much has lately been written, owing to the recent report of a Government Commission, belong to this group. They are distinguished from the more marked section of idiots in that they are not absolutely devoid of some intelligence, and are capable, under proper supervision, of some degree of self-control. Some of them even can take part in industrial operations, though they require constant direction when so employed, and are never, even in the least serious cases, susceptible of mental development beyond a strangely and abruptly limited degree. Contrasted with the idiots are the lunatics; they often are gifted with the highest receptivity, and frequently are men or women of the highest education and intellect, normal in every feature of body and mind except that their mental machinery works in a defective, “mad” way as to one or more subjects—often only as to one subject or class of subjects. They exhibit in different individuals a vast variety of illusions and propensities which may be merely unreasonable or may be dangerous to themselves and to others.

It seems that the idiotic and feeble-minded are devoid of, or defective in, general mental receptivity, although in regard to a few things they may have retentive but unintelligent memory. Even the less afflicted among them are incapable of “thinking” at all, because their defective memory or receptivity gives them nothing to think about. On the other hand, the lunatic exhibits the ordinary receptivity of a healthy human being, but thinks wrongly or absurdly upon one or a few lines, though normally and soundly upon every other.

The State in civilised countries has long since made provision for the proper medical care and restraint of lunatics and of the extreme cases of the other class, the idiots. But by an oversight in this country, which the gravedigger in Hamlet would consider very natural, the less extreme cases of idiocy—the so-called feeble-minded—have been left without State guardianship. It is a fact that these cases occur both in the wealthiest and the poorest class of the community, though they are put away under medical care by well-to-do families, and are left by the very poor to wander about and get into terrible mischief. Hence there has grown up a belief that feeble-minded offspring are more frequently produced by mentally sound parents who are very poor than by those who are rich or well-to-do, though there are not facts or figures which establish that conclusion. It has further been maintained that this supposed large proportional rate of production of feeble-minded among the poorest, ill-fed, ill-housed, and vicious dregs of the community is due to the action of defective nutrition, alcoholism, and lack of fresh air and healthy occupation upon the parents, and that a deterioration of the reproductive material, a twist, as it were, of the inner substance of the stock or breed in the direction of feeble-mindedness, has been thus established.

In reply to this somewhat hasty but at first sight plausible conclusion, we maintain (1) that the definite defect called feeble-mindedness is as common in well-nourished, well-to-do families as in the poorest; (2) that it is not proved that lack of food and good air can act upon the germs contained in a parental animal, so as to alter it in such a way that the brain of offspring begotten by that parent will not develop in normal structure and proportion; and, moreover, that “it has not been shown” (that is the important clause of the statement) that defective food and air can so alter the germs in a parent as to cause other deformation or structural defect in the young which grow from those germs. It is, on the other hand, true that such defect of food and air may cause the death of the parent, or may directly cause the death of the young, if the young are subjected to such defective conditions of life. It is necessary to point out, in reply to those who hold the starvation theory, of feeble-mindedness that it is capable of being handed on by hereditary transmission once it has appeared, and that in the most wretched groups of the population, both in cities and in country villages, the feeble-minded are not taken in charge by any authority, but leave their parents and shift for themselves, and, owing to their weakness, accompanied by unrestrained animal desires, they become, in an irregular way and at a very early age, themselves the parents of feeble-minded children. Thus feeble-mindedness is increased in the poorest class, but not in that of the rich. The facts ascertained are too horrible and painful for citation here. The recent Commission has made it clear that it is absolutely necessary for the State to interfere and prevent this terrible increase of helpless imbeciles.

There are eighty-four schools in London for the education of children who are not included under the extreme terms idiots or imbeciles, but are “feeble-minded and defective.” They are attended by 6000 children, of whom about two-thirds learn some useful manual work, whilst the rest are hopeless, and require permanent custodial care—which at present is not to be had by those whose parents cannot pay for it—but will, there is every reason to hope, soon be provided for them by the State. In its absence they constitute a real and ghastly danger to the community, since some of them are certain to propagate their kind, and not only will thus add to the existing large body of imbeciles, but perpetuate the taint of feeble-mindedness in the race.

It is an interesting question as to whether there is a definite gap—a difference of kind between these poor, defective children and the markedly stupid boys and girls of some village schools. I am inclined to believe that there is. The one group does not pass by a gradual series into the other. It has been stated that in some remote country districts of England only one-third of the school children can be taught more than the merest elements of writing, reading, and arithmetic; the majority are immovably dull, only the minority are as bright as ordinary London children. But even the dull village children get so far as to master the elements of learning, and probably their brains are not structurally defective, but only inactive for the time being. They may hereafter become village Hampdens. It certainly does seem to be the fact that the villages are continually deprived of the more intelligent members of their population by the attractions of the big towns, and that only the duller portion stay to breed in the village like the blind animals in a cave. But dullness is not identical with feeble-mindedness.

It is maintained that even in towns the multiplication of the hard-working, cautious, and capable section of the community is at a standstill. Its members seek comfort, intellectual exercise, and self-culture; they refuse to deprive themselves of these things, which cost money, and to spend that money on bringing up large families. On the other hand, the far more numerous “working-class” has no such ambition as a rule, and no anxiety as to what is to become of its offspring, however numerous. The more children the larger are the earnings of the family, and all in turn shift for themselves at an early age. The rates pay for such education as they require, and their parents have no desire to push them up the social ladder; but food, lodging, and clothes cost money. The working-man who desires to read, see things for himself, and be more than an animated cog on a wheel, cannot afford to have children and transmit to them that modicum of intelligence above the average which distinguishes him from his fellows, and demands for its cultivation the money with which he might keep a large family. Consequently the population is more and more largely replenished by the unenterprising poor and the unenterprising rich; the group which is enterprising and capable, and directs the work and thought of the civilised world, is, by the very qualities which make the increase of its strain desirable, debarred from contributing its fair proportion to the increase of the population. Is it possible for the community, by any system or by legislation, to overcome or evade this unfortunate tendency?

The neglect by both the local and central government to provide any supervision of feeble-minded children has had a special result of a strange and unhappy description. Let me hasten to say that now that we have secured by recent legislation the vitally important medical inspection of children in connection with Board schools, and the registration and official inspection of feeble-minded children which will surely be made compulsory before another year has passed, the danger of which I am about to speak will very shortly no longer exist. It is this. Feeble-minded children (whose condition falls short of that of actual idiocy) are almost impossible to manage as members of an ordinary family or household. Their condition is often not properly recognised; their parents or guardians find them to be obstinate, unteachable, and dirty. Often, when the family is poor, they are, under these circumstances, “boarded out” for a very small payment, or even taken charge of, out of charity. None of the persons concerned in these transactions know that they are dealing with a hopelessly unteachable child, born with this defective brain. They find scolding has no effect in guiding the child, mild chastisement fails, and the poor ignorant foster-parent (sometimes even the child’s own mother) becomes exasperated and determined to subdue what seems to be mere obstinacy and indifference. The awful demon of cruelty is let loose. What seems at first a virtuous determination to control and regulate the child’s behaviour for its own good leads to the infliction upon it of blows of savage violence, then to the less dangerous but revolting attempt to enforce obedience by the pain caused by a burn, and to starvation as a final instrument of discipline. A very large number of the cases of cruelty to children and adolescents which from time to time are brought into the law courts have their origin in the fact that the victim was “feeble-minded,” and that the guardian found guilty of cruelty did not (any more than do the judge and jury) understand or, indeed, know anything at all about such a condition. Often the feeble-mindedness itself has been attributed to the cruel treatment of the child, whereas the latter really was set going by the former. To a large extent the community is to blame for allowing “feeble-minded” children to be boarded out except in proper medical institutions, guaranteed and inspected by State authority. It is the same story as that which was once common enough in regard to “lunatics,” but has now been put an end to by the law. The boarding-out of children, whether healthy or weak-minded, should in all cases be illegal, except under proper official sanction and guarantee. It is not only for the sake of the children that this provision is necessary. It is certain that foolish people have been led, in the absence of all restraint and interference by public authority, to undertake without evil intention the care of discarded children, and have been led on by the hopeless dullness and obstinacy of a child with defective brain into cruel treatment of it; and when in some cases the child has died as the natural consequence of its congenital feebleness, the miserable guardians have been found guilty of causing its death. Though little excuse can be made for such miscreants, it is greatly to be desired that the law should step in at an earlier period, and both ensure proper care for the feeble-minded child and remove from unqualified guardians the chance of developing from a state of mere ignorance into one of criminal responsibility.

The Government Commission on the Treatment of the Feeble-Minded, which has recently reported, has adopted the view which I have explained in this article as to the origin of feeble-mindedness. A large amount of evidence was taken by the Commission from medical experts and others. A certain number of the witnesses maintained the opinion that feeble-mindedness arises from the action of deficiency of food, of overcrowding, and possibly of drunkenness upon individuals of healthy strain, whose offspring, as a consequence, exhibit feeble-mindedness. Some naturalists, who have committed themselves to a pious belief in what is vaguely called “the transmission of acquired characters,” think themselves called upon to support this opinion, in consequence of a notion that their belief would be rendered more reasonable than it is at present were such an origin of feeble-mindedness demonstrated. Apart from the fact that it is not demonstrated, it is difficult to see how, supposing it were, such a causation could be considered as a transmission of an acquired character. The ill-fed, drunken parent of a feeble-minded child (when discovered and examined) is not found to have “acquired” a condition of the brain agreeing with that of his or her feeble-minded offspring, though sometimes such parent is found to have been himself or herself born with a defective brain. No theory of organic memory, of engrams, inscripts, or transfer of molecular vibrations can enable us to present a plausible mechanical scheme of the way in which the acquired general condition (restricting ourselves to what is new and acquired) of an ill-fed parent can be definitely and specifically re-embodied in his or her offspring, as the peculiar structural condition of brain which is called “feeble-mindedness.” It has not been shown, so far as I am aware, that privation in regard to the food of a parental organism gives rise to new congenital qualities in the reproductive germs which that organism throws off.