Page:Magdalen by J S Machar.pdf/216

 his glasses, blinking his grey eyes at the trusty man in a provoking manner:

“You, sir, I judge,” said he, in a rasping voice, “are a follower of the theory of heredity. I will tell you straight that it is nonsense It is just so with diseases. Somehody, somewhere, sits down to-day, scowls, then opens his eyes wide, takes up his pen, and begins to scribble: I have found a new disease,—morbus icus,—and so forth. He writes a book about it, or sends an article to some magazine, and three months later three hundred people really are affected with morbus icus, and they go to the dogs. So it is with everything. People do not know what to do, so they concoct theories and systems, and put them into print. Suddenly the thought comes to somebody: theory of heredity! Good! Drive everybody into this straight-jacket, here a family, there a family,—or a whole nation,—what difference does it make? These stories are exceedingly clever, they