356 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



that it has been put in a wrong setting and is therefore capable of a 

 different interpretation than that which its author gives. The dif- 

 ficulty in applying biological principles to sociological problems is so 

 great that any slight error leads to radically false results. Social 

 thinkers must use biology, but care must be taken not to isolate some 

 one principle from related doctrines which if properly presented would 

 vitiate the reasoning drawn from a narrow field. The qualities of 

 mothers are inherited by sons and those of fathers by their daughters, 

 so that if there are any special sex characters they would soon appear 

 in persons of the opposite sex. We are thus intermediate forms with 

 characters coming both from our fathers and mothers. But it does not 

 follow from this that sexual affinity is due to this mixture: for this 

 would assume that we have a special liking for qualities absent in our- 

 selves. On the contrary, we like those like ourselves and have an 

 aversion to those who present differences no matter how slight. 



The doctrine of sexual affinity should be so restricted that it will 

 conform to sociological and psychological laws as well as to those of 

 biology. This can be done by keeping in mind a distinction that 

 Weininger has overlooked. Were all characters natural and none 

 acquired, we might assume that they were male or female. But 

 acquired characters can not thus be divided. They are carried along 

 by a social heredity which impresses its effects on both sexes alike. 

 Weininger assumes, however, that all characters are due to differences 

 in germ cells and that every one in his development reveals the tend- 

 encies active in them. These tendencies, however, are thwarted by 

 adverse conditions, so that each individual at maturity is either far 

 short of his full development or has been pressed in other directions 

 than forces of the original germ cell would dictate. Differences be- 

 tween men are thus due not merely to variations in germ cells, but to 

 defects which arise out of bad conditions. Persons with the same 

 germ cells may differ more radically at maturity than they differ from 

 those whose germ cells represent some variation in the species. Food, 

 housing, light, air and disease are of prime importance in creating the 

 peculiarities which appear at maturity. The modifications which cul- 

 minate in some variations of the racial type are in any age too slight 

 to be of importance in accounting for the marked differences which 

 appear in mature men and women. These differences are defects due 

 to bad conditions, not peculiarities of germ cells. They represent 

 retardations in development, not modification of the racial type. We 

 are all short some characters which our heredity would reveal if con- 

 ditions favored and these shortages are of such infinite variety that 

 scarcely two individuals are alike. 



It is generally admitted that improvements in the human race can 

 be made by crosses increasing the number of natural characters. But 



