This applies even to such an acute thinker as John Stuart Mill, whose ideas were formed in the pre-Darwinian epoch, and whose works must now be accepted with great reserve. Darwin was quite right in saying, "The ignoring of all transmitted mental qualities will, as it seems to me, be hereafter judged as a most serious blemish in the works of Mr. Mill." (Descent of Man, p. 98.) A quotation from the Principles of Political Economy (Vol. 1, p. 389) will give an idea of Mr. Mill's point of view: "Of all the vulgar methods of escaping from the effects of social and moral influences on the mind, the most vulgar is that of attributing diversities of conduct and character to inherent natural differences"!
CHAPTER IX
Feeble-mindedness, its Causes and Consequences. By H. H. Goddard, director of the Research Laboratory of the Training School at Vineland, New Jersey, for feeble-minded boys and girls. New York, The Macmillan Co., 1914.
Probably the word now covers a congeries of defects, some of which may be non-germinal. Epilepsy is so very generally found associated with various other congenital defects, that action should not be delayed.
Goddard, H. H., Feeble-Mindedness, pp. 14-16.