568 EVOLUTION, GENETICS, AND EUGENICS 



on the other hand, is likewise inadequate unless accompanied by 

 constant improvement in the surroundings; and its advocates must 

 demand euthenics as an accompaniment of selection, in order that the 

 opportunity for getting a fair selection may be as free as possible. If 

 the euthenist likewise takes pains not to ignore the existence of the 

 racial factor, then the two schools are standing on the same ground, 

 and it is merely a matter of taste or opportunity, whether one empha- 

 sizes one side or the other. Each of the two factions, sometimes 

 thought to be opposing, will be seen to be getting the same end result, 

 namely, human progress. 



Not only are the two schools working for the same end, but each 

 must depend in still another way upon the other, in order to make 

 headway. The eugenist cannot see his measures put into effect except 

 through changes in law and custom — i.e., euthenic changes. He must 

 and does appeal to euthenics to secure action. The social reformer, on 

 the other hand, cannot see any improvements made in civilization 

 except through the discoveries and inventions of some citizens who are 

 inherently superior in abiUty. He in turn must depend on eugenics 

 for every advance that is made. 



It may make the situation clearer to state it in the customary 

 terms of biological philosophy. Selection does not necessarily result 

 in progressive evolution. It merely brings about the adaptation of 

 a species or a group to a given environment. The tapeworm is the 

 stock example. In human evolution, the nature of this environment 

 will determine whether adaptation to it means progress or retro- 

 gression, whether it leaves a race happier and more productive, or the 

 reverse. AU racial progress, or eugenics, therefore, depends on the 

 creation of a good environment, and the fitting of the race to that 

 environment. Every improvement in the enviromnent should bring 

 about a corresponding biological adaptation. The two factors in 

 evolution must go side by side, if the race is to progress in what the 

 human mind considers the direction of advancement. In this sense, 

 euthenics and eugenics bear the same relation to human progress as 

 a man's two legs do to his locomotion. 



Social workers in purely euthenic fields have frequently failed to 

 remember this progress of adaptation, in their efforts to change the 

 environment. Eugenists, in centering their attention on adaptation, 

 have sometimes paid too little attention to the kind of environment to 

 which the race was being adapted. The present book holds that the 



