RACE THEORY 



Race Theory 



111 ail altogether wider field, that of the study of the evolution 

 of society, of culture, and of language, genetics is important in 

 enabhiig us to apply rigorous methods to the study of races, classes 

 and individuals, in rooting out dangerous superstitions and in 

 replacing them v^ith sounder judgments. One example of this 

 replacement may be taken, that of the racial theory which has lately 

 been used as a pohtical instrument in several countries. The theory 

 has three parts : — 



(i) That mankind is made up of groups, called races, which are 



separable by rehgion or language, 

 (ii) That these races are sufficiently homogeneous to be placed 



in fixed order on a scale of unconditional merit, 

 (iii) That crossing between higher and lower races on this scale 



always produces offspring inferior to the higher. 



Consideration, equally of the history of mankind and his present 

 state, shows that he resembles the crossbreeding species which we 

 have discussed earlier in being adapted to some degree of hybridity. 

 Groups fluctuate widely in the degree of inbreeding or outbreeding 

 they practise and in the tenacity with which they hold to religion 

 and language, neither of which proves an insurmountable barrier 

 to mating. Consequently they may well differ in their optimum 

 degrees of hybridity. We can only predict that the sudden succession 

 o£ inbreeding to outbreeding (as on Tristan da Cunha or Pitcaim 

 Island) as well as the reverse, are likely to be hazardous in their 

 immediate effects. 



Nor can we suppose that, so far as racial groups uniformly differ, 

 their differences are unconditionally advantageous to one or the 

 other. The negro benefits in the tropics from his greater resistance 

 to a variety of tropical diseases. The European benefits in tem- 

 perate chmates from his greater (although very variable) resistance to 

 tuberculosis. In other words races in man, as in all other animals, are 

 adaptive. Crossing between them, therefore, reduces the immediate 

 fitness of the progeny while increasing the long-range flexibihty of 

 the stock. In man, again as in all other organisms, neither the fitness 

 nor the flexibility is the highest good but the balance between the 



Elements of Genetics •? c i _ 



