BIOLOGY IN HUMAN AFFAIRS 



I have seen plenty of answers in the public press — the type 

 of government, the influence of religion, tariff, sound 

 money, and so on — but none touches the mark. Given its 

 natural resources, the pattern of a country's career is set 

 by its small group of trained men of high intelligence, 

 the men who deal masterfully with the problems of science, 

 art, politics, and business. The rest of us need not fool 

 ourselves, we are simply the chorus of this drama. But 

 these grade A people are rare, as are also the feeble intel- 

 lects which lie at the other end of the curve, the grade E 

 people. People of grades B and D are somewhat more 

 common; people of grade C are commonest of all. 



In other words, the individuals composing our popula- 

 tion exhibit enormous differences in innate capacity, the 

 distribution of intelligence being such that a high-peaked 

 symmetrical curve is formed, with mediocrity holding the 

 center position. And it is the exceptional few at one end 

 who mark out our path in the world. If sufficient data 

 were available, the distribution of intelligence among the 

 nationals of other countries would be found to be very 

 similar in character. There might be slight differences in 

 average capacity; such differences would be small, however, 

 when compared with the great spread of differences within 

 each group. 



It is not difficult to see that the future progress of any 

 nation, our own included, depends upon the proportion 

 of people of grades A and B. If they increase, the country 

 will prosper; if they decrease, the country will decay. 

 There are two ways to shift the average. One may try to 

 promote the survival of the grade A people and to retard 

 the survival of the grade E people who are citizens of the 

 country, which is the method ordinarily proposed by 

 eugenicists; or one may try to promote the entrance of 

 grade A people and to prevent the entrance of grade E 

 people as immigrants, which is the suggestion made here. 



[194] 



