BIOLOGY AND HUMAN WELFARE 



423 



which we believe is denied to the lower animate beings, of conscious 

 response — of choice. Human volition and action can retard or ac- 

 celerate nature's response. Human volition may not only decide, 

 within limits, the response to surrounding conditions, but also not 

 infrequently may directly change the conditions so as to render 

 unnecessary individual or racial adaptation to them. Thoughts 

 such as these make plain the enormous complexity of the situation 

 and reveal the possibility of danger lurking where it may be least 



Fig. 270. — The Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachu- 

 setts. One of the laboratories where biologists spend the summer in research 

 covering many branches of the science. 



expected — danger lest in acting as we think humane from the 

 point of view of particular individuals, we may be rendering a dis- 

 service to the race. 



The complex problems of eugenics, the science of being well-born, 

 are problems in genetics so intricately interwoven with those of all 

 the other sciences of human life and relationships, in particular 

 sociology and psychology, that propaganda in eugenics not funda- 

 mentally grounded in basic interlocking data from these sciences is 

 not only premature, but fraught with insidious possibilities. Eu- 

 genics seeks improvement through nature, euthenics seeks im- 

 provement through nurture. Each is a partial view and before 

 significant progress can be made the proper balance between these 

 two aspects of one problem must be grasped. Organism and envi- 

 ronment are one and inseparable. ( Fig. 198.) 



