endowment. He may say that in spite of the complication introduced by
the consideration that a divergent variation from one ideal may be a
divergence towards another ideal, there remain certain definable
points, that could be bred for universally, for all that.

What are they?

There will be little doubt he will answer "Health." After that probably
he may say "Beauty." In addition the reader of Mr. Galton's
_Hereditary Genius_ will probably say, "ability," "capacity,"
"genius," and "energy." The reader of Doctor Nordau will add "sanity."
And the reader of Mr. Archdall Reid will round up the list with
"immunity" from dipsomania and all contagious diseases. "Let us mark
our human beings," the reader of that way of thinking will suggest,
"let us give marks for 'health,' for 'ability,' for various sorts of
specific immunity and so forth, and let us weed out those who are low
in the scale and multiply those who stand high. This will give us a
straight way to practical amelioration, and the difficulty you are
trying to raise," he urges, "vanishes forthwith."

It would, if these points were really points, if "beauty," "capacity,"
"health," and "sanity" were simple and uniform things. Unfortunately
they are not simple, and with that fact a host of difficulties arise.
Let me take first the most simple and obvious case of "beauty." If
beauty were a simple thing, it would be possible to arrange human
beings in a simple scale, according to whether they had more or less of
this simple quality--just as one can do in the case of what are perhaps
really simple and breedable qualities--height or weight. This person,
one might say, is at eight in the scale of beauty, and this at ten, and
this at twenty-seven. But it complicates the case beyond the