EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF HEREDITY 77 



are of course, very largely those of heredity. Eugenics is 

 the applied science based upon the pure science of heredity. 

 The main problem of eugenics is how to eliminate human 

 beings with a tendency to any physical or mental weakness 

 making for poverty, misery, ignorance, and crime; and 

 how to increase the number of individuals physically, 

 mentally, and morally more robust and sound; and withal 

 how, if possible, to raise the standard of all desirable 

 human traits. A careful study of heredity and eugenics 

 will make possible a much more intelligent and efficient 

 program for charity work and social betterment. 



67. Investigations Since Mendel. It must be re- 

 membered that Mendel's most valued contribution was 

 not the observations which he made and recorded con- 

 cerning the garden pea, nor the hypotheses which he ad- 

 vanced on the basis of those observations, but this method 

 of procedure, whereby he elevated the study of heredity 

 to the rank of an exact science. As in the case of all 

 hypotheses, the task for science is to subject them to the 

 most searching tests, to see if they invariably agree with 

 facts, and may be accepted as in all probability embody- 

 ing the actual truth may be elevated to the rank of 

 theories. The testing of Mendelism has been occupying 

 all the best talents of many investigators since the re- 

 discovery of Mendel's publication, about 1900. Many 

 biologists are still skeptical, a few reject the hypotheses, 

 and still others believe they contain the germ of truth, 

 but must be more or less modified. Whether they prove 

 to be erroneous or true is not so important, but it is impor- 

 tant for us to know which is the case. True or not, they, 

 like nearly all working hypotheses (natural selec- 

 tion, mutation, nebular hypothesis, atomic hypothesis 



