Public Meeting.
Address By Dr. W. B. Benham, F.R.S.

On Friday evening at 8 p.m., Dr. W. B. Benham, President of the Biology Section, delivered, as a public lecture, his Presidential Address entitled “The Inheritance of Mental Qualities,” Mr. B. C. Aston presiding over a gathering of about 300 members and visitors.

The close resemblance of offspring to their parents was the subject of Professor Benham's introductory remarks, and the principles of heredity discovered by Mendel were described and illustrated by lantern slides. Recent investigations into the problem of heredity, upon which a new viewpoint had recently been taken, were explained, and Dr. Benham further mentioned that the settled views of Sir Francis Galton and his successors that mental qualities were inherited “in the same manner and in the same degree as man's physical characteristics” had failed to satisfy biologists at the present time.

The problem relating to mental qualities was much more difficult to investigate than that of bodily characters. In the case of the lower animals mental qualities were either completely lacking or had not been the subject of thorough investigations. In the case of a number of distinguished men, examples were taken from the famous Darwin family to show that the mental ability was of a wide variety of types. Marriage into noted families had, in some cases, resulted in the expression of marked ability. Feeble-mindedness appeared to be inherited in much the same way as the qualities of outstanding ability, and the results of the marriage of such people were lamentable. It appeared arguable, however, that mental qualities, whether strong or weak, were largely the result of environment and opportunity, and that the evidence obtained was by no means conclusive.

The removal of the cause of feeble-mindedness appeared to be, to some extent, within the control of statesmen, by improving the environmental conditions. Society might be relieved of a serious menace by this course more rapidly than by awaiting improvement in the standard of mentality through a number of generations.

Commenting upon the passing of the Town Planning Act, Professor Benham said it should do much to improve social conditions, and would have a beneficial influence upon the health of the people. To such stimuli the mental development of the people should make a good response. Tact and sympathy he counselled in the application of the Mental Defectives Act, and suggested that the removal of objectionable surroundings might do much to relieve the State from the burden of unsocial members.