26 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



sense, owe their origin biologically to recombinations of characters 

 which have existed from time immemorial in separate races. No doubt 

 the great men which arise in human societies from time to time may 

 be explained in the same manner, so far as they are regarded as biolog- 

 ical phenomena. 



This possibility of producing what is virtually new by recombination 

 must now be considered. Through the work done by various breeders, 

 beginning with Mendel, we know much about the manner of such com- 

 binations, and how to get rid of undesirable units. Where the cases 

 have been simple almost ideal success has been attained: and in com- 

 plicated cases it has been possible to produce definite results by con- 

 centrating attention on special characters. Thus Bateson in his presi- 

 dential address before the zoological section of the British Association 

 in 1904, said: 



There are others who look to the science of heredity with a loftier aspira- 

 tion: who ask, can any of this be used to help those who come after us to be 

 better than we are — healthier, wiser or more worthy? The answer depends on 

 the meaning of the question. On the one hand, it is certain that a competent 

 breeder, endowed with full powers, by the aid even of our present knowledge, 

 could in a few generations breed out several of the morbid diatheses'. As we have 

 got rid of rabies and pleuro-pneumonia, so we could exterminate the simpler 

 vices. Voltaire's cry, " Erraser l'infame," might well replace Archbishop 

 Parker's " Table of Forbidden Degrees," which is all the instruction Parliament 

 has so far provided. Similarly, a race may conceivably be bred true to some 

 physical and intellectual characters considered good. 



We come then to the conclusion that in the case of man, as with 

 domesticated animals and cultivated plants, it is possible to get rid of 

 many undesirable qualities, to combine others which are desirable, and 

 to maintain indefinitely that which has been once secured. Where 

 there is bisexual inheritance we can not have strictly pure lines, to be 

 sure, but it is possible to have lines which are pure within practical 

 limits. That is to say, we may have a race of people none of whom 

 have a certain hereditary taint, all of whom have a certain hereditary 

 quality. Beyond this, we would not go, were it possible; for no one 

 would wish to sacrifice the interesting diversity of human types which 

 makes life chiefly worth while. In our national aspirations, we have 

 recognized the ideal of a moderate unity of type; thus all Englishmen 

 will agree that a true, full-blooded countryman of theirs should possess 

 certain attributes, and will admit that those who fail in this are not 

 strictly of the elect. All Frenchmen, typically, should have a certain 

 vivacity not found among the Englishmen, and so on throughout the 

 series. 



Thus the ideal of a relatively pure race of high quality is by no 

 means a new one; but what is new is the practical knowledge of how 

 this may be brought about, with the certain expectation of much more 



