Heredity : its relations to human development / correspondence between Elizabeth Thompson and Loring Moody.

  • Thompson, Elizabeth, 1821-1899.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Heredity : its relations to human development / correspondence between Elizabeth Thompson and Loring Moody. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    to the pound or slaughter-house to keep them from doing mischief ? Our churches, Masonic lodges and other associations sit in judgment on the moral and physical characters of pro- posed members, and exclude and even expel those that are unfit. Yet, such are the characters of a large num- ber of those who enter into the structure of general society, that we are compelled to sup- port an immense array of courts, sheriffs, con- stables, jails, prisons, lunatic asylums, hospi- tals, etc., with standing armies of policemen armed with club and revolver, to protect us from the peace-breakers of our own begetting. And in spite of all these the night-prowling thieves, burglars and assassins fill us with such a sense of insecurity that we can hardly sleep in our beds. Century after century have Church and State, with all their vast, complicated and cumbrous machinery, enforced their empirical methods with terrible penalties, and at tremen- dous cost, for the purpose of putting an end to these evils, and with the most wretched re-