544 EVOLUTION, HEREDITY, EUGENICS 



pressions are usually based on accidents long after the organs and 

 systems of the embryo are developed past the probability of being 

 affected by slight nutritional disturbance, the maternal impression 

 idea must be dismissed as unproved. 



Eugenics, — The old cry of the politician (seeking a heavy labor 

 vote) that we must infuse new blood into our land to prevent the 

 decay incident to inbreeding of the race becomes less forceful when 

 we view in an unprejudiced way the important work of Doctor King 

 and others in connection with the problem of inbreeding. ^^ Doctor 

 King has definitely proved that in the white rat it is possible to 

 select within a Hne, until, by a long continued process of inbreeding, 

 a stock far superior to the original was produced. We have much 

 evidence also from the long continued inbreeding of race horses and- 

 hunting dogs, as well as the vast amount of work on plants. 



It matters little whether we are able to determine exactly the 

 acquired characters that are inherited, if we do not exert ourselves 

 to control both the germplasm and the environment. Certainly 

 degeneration may occur. As Sancho Panza said, " we are as God 

 made us, and some of us even worse." 



Believing that there has been an evolution in the differentiation 

 of races, we are attempting to apply our knowledge of heredity to 

 increase the number of superior beings. But these superior persons 

 must be given something besides mere education. As the Iron 

 Duke said, " Gentlemen, If you are only going to educate the 

 children, you are only going to make them clever devils." 



With the forces of evil rampant, and with the descendants of 

 reputable people taking on all of the vices and but few of the virtues 

 of certain savages who are trying to make the world a chaos, it 

 would seem that drastic measures must be taken. 



Children are shot down in our streets by warring gangsters, 

 and still the so-called "intelligentsia" continue to demonstrate to 

 their own children the depths to which people will descend, people 

 who are not willing to conform to the laws of common decency 

 merely because some one has said that it is "fashionable" to 

 break laws. Meanwhile the social aristocracy of our land continue 

 to live decently, and to deplore the degradation of the social 

 climbers who think they are having a "perfectly swell time." 



'8 Dahlberg, G. 1929. Inbreeding in man. Genetics, vol. 14, no. 5, pp. 421-454. 

 East, E. M., and Jones, D. F. 1919. Inbreeding and Outbreeding. J. B. Lippincott 

 &Cq. 



