THE BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF SOCIOLOGY 



the generous and those who are too intelligent to wish to confine 

 their interests to their personal monetary aggrandisement, are apt to 

 be overwhelmed. This is what Muller calls the "Dominance of 

 Economics over Eugenics." But what scientific evidence there is 

 available, tends on the other hand to show that the differences in 

 scores on intelligence tests, made by different races and classes, are, 

 to the best of our knowledge, due to the differences in environ- 

 mental advantages which they have received. It must, of course, be 

 admitted that as yet we are ignorant of the distribution of genetic 

 worth in the population of any civilised country with a capitalist 

 form of economics and a strong class-stratification. Hogben has 

 shown in an elegant way^ that while we may safely speak of a genetic 

 difference between two groups measured in one and the same environ- 

 ment, or between two environments in which one and the same genetic 

 group is tested, we cannot discuss the relative contributions of 

 inheritance and environment in the case of different groups in different 

 environments. Those of us who propose to abolish class-distinctions 

 and privileges must therefore act in faith, a faith supported, it is true, 

 by the results of the tests mentioned above, the faith that the contri- 

 bution of genetic worth at present suppressed by adverse environment, 

 will be immensely large and significant. We shall not be deterred by 

 this fact, for here humanity has nothing to lose. 



Muller returned to the attack in a small but important book^ in 

 which he ranged over tlie whole question of the past, present and 

 future of man, arising "out of the dark" of prehistoric savagery into 

 more or less civilised communities and possessing a potential future 

 of great grandeur. Man must recognise, he said, that this future can 

 only be brought about by the continued and consciously fostered 

 growth of that intelligence and co-operation which have brought him 

 to his present status. Similar views have been forcefully expressed by 

 another geneticist, Mark Graubard.^ 



Both these biologists agree that the social struggle under our 

 existing civilisation does not lead to the reproductive survival of the 

 germ plasm most favourable to this intelligence and co-operation. A 

 competitive civilisation based on predatory individualism must, and 

 obviously does, give particularly good opportunities to those persons 



^ L. Hogben, Journ. Genetics, 1933,27, 379. 



^ Out of the Night by H. J. Muller (Vanguard Press, New York, 1935; GoUancz, 

 London, 1936). 



^ Genetics and the Social Order by Mark Graubard (Tomorrow Press, New York, 

 1935) and Aian the Slave and Master (New York, 1938 and London, 1939). 



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