The Fertility of the Unfit Part 8

But those in whom these qualities are absent or least conspicuous are our worst citizens, and, therefore, our worst citizens are the most prolific. Observation and statistics lead to the same conclusion.

Amongst the very poor in crowded localities, the pa.s.sion for marriage early a.s.serts itself.

Its natural enemies are prudence and a consciousness of responsibility, and these suggest restraint. But prudence and restraint are not the common attributes of the very poor. Poverty makes people reckless, they live from hour to hour as the lower animals do. They satisfy their desires as they arise, whether it be the desire for food or the desire of s.e.x.

The very poor includes amongst its numbers, the drunkard, the criminal, the professional pauper, and the physically and mentally defective.

The drunkard is not distinguished by his prudence, nor by his self-restraint. In fact the alcohol which he imbibes paralyses what self-control he has, and excites through an increased circulation in his lower brain-centres an unnatural s.e.xual desire. What hope is there of the drunkard curtailing his family by self-restraint?

Dr. Billings says, (Forum, June 1893) "So far as we have data with regard to the use of intoxicating liquors, fertility seems greatest in those countries and amongst those cla.s.ses where they are most freely used."

Neither is the criminal blessed with the important attributes of prudence and self-control. They are conspicuous by their absence in him.

In all defectives, in epileptics, idiots, the physical deformed, the insane, and the criminal, the prudence and self-restraint necessary to the limitation of families is either partially or entirely absent.

To the poor in crowded localities, with limited room-s.p.a.ce and insanitary surroundings, effective self-restraint is more difficult than in any other cla.s.s of society.

In all defectives the s.e.xual instinct is as strong, if not stronger, than in the normal, and they have not that interest in life, and regard for the future that suggest restraint, nor have they the power to practise it though prudence were to guide them.

The higher checks to population, as they exist among the better cla.s.ses of people, do not obtain amongst the defectives taken as a cla.s.s.

Vice and misery are more active checks amongst the very poor, and abortion is practised to a very considerable extent, but the appalling fact remains, that the birth-rate of the unfit goes on undisturbed, while the introduction of higher checks amongst the normal cla.s.ses has led to a marked decline, more marked than at first sight appears. The worst feature of the problem, however, is not so much the disproportion in the numbers born to the normal and the abnormal respectively, but the fact that the defectives propagate their kind.

The defectives, whose existence and whose liberty const.i.tute the greatest danger to the State, are the intermittent inhabitants of our lunatic asylums, prisons, and reformatories.

There is one defect common to all these, and that is defective inhibition.

All human activity is the result of two forces, motor impulses tending to action, and inhibition tending to inertia.

The lower animals have strong motor impulses constantly exploding and expressing themselves in great activity, offensive, defensive, self-preservative, and procreative, being restrained only by the inhibitive forces of their conditions and environment.

Children have strong motor impulses, which are at first little controlled. Inhibition is a late development and is largely a result of education.

If the motor impulses remain strong, or become stronger in the presence of development with exercise, while inhibition remains weak, we have a criminal.

Inhibition is the function performed by the highest and last-formed brain-cells. These brain cells may be undeveloped either from want of exercise, that is, education, or from hereditary weakness, or, having been developed may have undergone degeneration, under the influence of alcohol, or from hereditary or acquired disease.

Motor impulses, as the springs of action, are common to all animals. In the lower animals inhibition is external, and never internal or subjective. In man it may be internal or external.

It is internal or subjective in those whose higher brain centres are well developed and normal. Their auto-inhibition is such that all their motor impulses are controlled and directed in the best interests of society.

It is external only in those whose higher brain centres are either undeveloped or diseased. These const.i.tute the criminal cla.s.ses. Their motor impulses are unrestrained. They offer a low or reduced resistance to temptation.

Weak or absent resistance in the face of a normal motor impulse whose expression injuriously affects another, is crime, and a criminal is one whose power of resistance to motor impulses has been reduced by disease, hereditary or acquired, or is absent through arrested development.

A confirmed criminal is one in whom the frequent recurrence of an unrestrained impulse injurious to others has induced habit.

Auto-inhibition is defective or absent, and society must in her own interest provide external restraint, and this we call law.

Criminals are, therefore, mental defectives, and may be defined for sociological purposes as those in whom legal punishment for the second time, for the same offence, has failed to act as a deterrent.

M. Boies, in "Prisoners and Paupers," says that conviction for the third time for an offence, is proof of hereditary criminal taint.

The existence of motor impulses in the human animal is normal. They vary in strength and force. We cannot eradicate, we can only control them.

They may become less a.s.sertive under the constant control of a highly cultivated inhibition, but it is only in this way that they can be affected at all. They may be controlled, either by the individual himself or by the State. Our reformatories are peopled by young persons whose distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristic is that inhibition is undeveloped or defective. This defect may be due to want of education, but it is more often hereditary.

Two things only can be done for them. This faculty of inhibition can be trained by education, or external restraint can be provided by law.

But the distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristic of all defectives, within or without our public inst.i.tutions, is defective inhibition,--they are unable to control the spontaneous impulses that continually arise, and which may indeed be normal.

Impulses may be abnormal from hereditary predisposition, as _e.g._ the impulse to drink, but only through strengthening inhibition can these impulses be controlled,--their existence must be accepted.

But whether the defect is an abnormal impulse, or a normal impulse abnormally strong, or an abnormally weak or defective inhibition, the condition is hereditary, and such defectives propagate their kind.

It has been shown that they are more fertile than any other cla.s.ses because of the very defect that makes them a danger to society.

The defective restraint that allows them to commit offences against person and property, also allows their procreative impulse unrestrained activity.

Defectives, therefore, are not only fertile, but they propagate their kind, and a few examples will serve to show to some extent the fertility, and to an enormous extent the hereditary tendencies, of the unfit.

CASE NO. 1, p. 49.

J. E----'s FAMILY.

M M F ----------+---------------------------+----------------+-------------- | | | A suicide, Aet. 56 Died of cancer of | Died in a fit, Married. No issue stomach, Aet. 66 | Aet. 54 | ----+---------+----------+----------+-----------+------+----+--------+ | | | | | | | M M F F F M M Died of Died of Died of Died of Died of Healthy, | cancer of convulsions consumption consumption, consumption, has | stomach, at | | Aet 16 seven | Aet. 58 13 weeks | | children | | | | | Left five Married several Married several M children years. years. Epiletic, twice No issue No issue insane, testes in abdomen. Married.

No children

CASE NO. 2, p. 108.

K. S----'s FAMILY.

M F -----------------------+------------------------- Epileptic | Had sister insane | ----+------------+---------+--+------------+--------------+------ | | | | | M F M F F Epileptic. Epileptic Idiot, Sane as yet. Insane. Suicidal, Dead. No and insane. impotent Nine children, incurable issue Dead. No some imbecile No issue issue

CASE No. 3, p. 125.

Father, a drunkard | Son | A drunkard, disgustingly | on his wedding day.

| ----+----------+----------+----------+--+-------+-----------+--------+ | | | | | | | Died of Died of Idiot of Suicidal. Peculiar Repeatedly | convulsions convulsions 22 years A dement and insane | of age irritable | Nervous and depressed

CASE No. 4, p. 137.

M Died | mad | M__________M_____|_________M__________M | | | | Imbecile Irritable Died of brain disease ______________________|___________________________________ | | | | | | | | | | F. Imbecile Epileptic Epileptic 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 All seven died in convulsions

CASE No. 5, p. 137.

F. a suicide |_______________________________F____________________F M Insane | Insane ______________|________________________________________ | | | Excitable Dull Epileptic Imbecile