A man may show very learnedly that certain mixtures of race make
a happy community, but he may be quite wrong (he generally is)
about what communities are happy. A man may explain scientifically
how a certain physical type involves a really bad man, but he may be
quite wrong (he generally is) about which sort of man is really bad.
Thus his whole argument is useless, for he understands only one half
of the equation.
The drearier kind of don may come to me and say, "Celts are unsuccessful;
look at Irishmen, for instance." To which I should reply,
"You may know all about Celts; but it is obvious that you know
nothing about Irishmen. The Irish are not in the least unsuccessful,
unless it is unsuccessful to wander from their own country over a great
part of the earth, in which case the English are unsuccessful too."
A man with a bumpy head may say to me (as a kind of New Year
greeting), "Fools have microcephalous skulls," or what not.
To which I shall reply, "In order to be certain of that, you must
be a good judge both of the physical and of the mental fact.
It is not enough that you should know a microcephalous skull
when you see it. It is also necessary that you should know a fool
when you see him; and I have a suspicion that you do not know
a fool when you see him, even after the most lifelong and intimate
of all forms of acquaintanceship."
The trouble with most sociologists, criminologists, etc.
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