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SCIENCE PROGRESS 



general cannot be made. In every war there is a complicated interplay of con- 

 flicting factors ; and in each war the factors vary in weight and in direction, so 

 that each war, and almost each battle, will have its own special consequences. A 

 war waged under modern conditions, with machine-guns, and poison-gas, and 

 serums, must be very different in eugenic character and consequences from a war 

 waged with assegais and arrows. A war, again, involving a whole nation must 

 differ greatly in its evolutionary results — social and biological — from a war fought 

 by a few mercenary troops. 



Let us, then, consider a special case on its own merits. Let us consider the 

 probable evolutionary effect of the present European war on the biological char- 

 acters of the English, French, Italian, and Teutonic peoples. (In this inquiry we 

 disregard Russia, for a great part of her huge and very heterogeneous population 

 have been unaffected and will be unaffected by the conflict that is now raging, 

 while the smaller nations pay their own particular tribute to Mars and would 

 require separate consideration.) 



In our inquiry we must, in the first place, ask whether the preliminary medical 

 selection of recruits is of evolutionary value. 



The nations we have named have sent almost every fit man within certain age- 

 limits to fight, and almost every unfit man within these ages has been left behind ; 

 and a cry goes up from the pacifist and the quasi-scientific and even from the 

 scientific that since the fit go to be killed and since the unfit remain at home to 

 procreate their kind, this preliminary sifting with the temporary procreative 

 advantages it gives to the unfit must, in itself, have evil racial consequences. 



It is very doubtful, however, whether this preliminary medical selection can 

 have any important or permanent effects on the future physical fitness of the 

 fighting peoples. Since I myself have examined and selected some thousands of 

 recruits, I have some special knowledge of the nature of the medical selection, 

 and I would draw attention to the following facts, which seem to have been rather 

 ignored. 



The great majority of men rejected, are rejected on account of short-sight, 

 rupture, flat feet, varicose veins, heart disease. 



Now, short-sight is very often a product of bad domiciliary conditions ; rupture 

 is very often due to accident ; flat feet and varicose veins are often ^the result of 

 too much standing ; heart disease is very often caused by rheumatic fever. Most 

 of these defects and diseases are acquired, have no effect on the racial value of the 

 individual — since acquired characters are not immediately transmitted— and are 

 not likely to affect his offspring. Even the men who are rejected for deficient 

 physique are not likely to depress unduly the average physique of coming genera- 

 tions ; they are a very small fraction of the total male population ; many of them 

 had finished their paternal career before the war ; and, in any case, most of them 

 are victims of environment, and their offspring under good conditions will tend, 

 as we have already pointed out, to return to the average physique of the race to 

 which they belong. I doubt, indeed, whether, taking all things together, the 

 average enlisted man has three per cent, more racial value than the average 

 unenlisted person. 



I cannot, therefore, quite agree with Dr. Abraham Jacobi when he asserts that 

 " the unfit fathers produce unfit children " ; I see little reason to fear that the race 

 will suffer from the procreative advantages of the unfit left at home, especially 

 since such advantages have been probably nullified to a great extent by an 

 epidemic of soldier weddings. 



Now, let us look at selection in the army by war itself. Armies are not com- 



