Eugenic Bearing of Taxation 83 
Eugenics’ is much more reconcilable 
with the sociological point of view than 
anything else I have seen, from biolo- 
gists, covering similar ground. 
I am quite willing that you should 
publish any part of my letters that you 
think may interest your readers. 
Sincerely yours, 
CHARLES H. CooLey. 
Nore sy F. A. Woops.—By way of 
further discussion I should only like to 
make three further comments. 
1. I agree with Professor Cooley in 
his idea that a social group may be 
regarded and studied as if it were a 
biological organism, but this idea does 
not prevent us from measuring the 
differences between individuals who 
compose the group and attempting to 
devise means of studying the various 
reactions of the group or the individual. 
2. I do not agree at all with Professor 
Cooley’s statement that ‘human hered- 
ity is far more plastic than that of the 
lower animals,’ as I have already 
shown the truth to be quite the contrary 
by an analysis of the degrees of arti- 
ficial modification obtainable in the or- 
ganic series of plants and animals. 
This is the above cited ‘‘Laws of Dim- 
inishing Environmental Influence.’’ 
3. I fully agree with Professor Cooley 
when he says that habits of thought are 
not like to be changed by argument. 
No, not by argument which in the past 
has been too much the method of the 
sociologist but by measurements and 
by inductive science which has only 
recently become the method of the 
biologist, the psychologist and the 
philosopher of history. 
The Eugenic Bearing of Taxation 
Assessment of an income tax by 
dividing the total income of a family 
among all the members, old or young, 
and taxing each separately, is recom- 
mended by a committee of the Eugenics 
Education Society (London), headed 
by the president, Leonard Darwin, 
which has been submitted to Parlia- 
ment. 
As a conclusion to the discussion, 
which is printed in the January, 1920, 
Eugenics Review, Major Darwin prints 
the following summary: 
“Taxation should fall on parents and 
on the childless in proportion to their 
ability to bear the strain. To make the 
incidence of the income tax just, the 
amount thus now obtained from the 
childless should be increased and that 
from parents decreased, the transfer of 
wealth thus affected should bear some 
relationship to the income taxed, and 
consideration should be given to the 
distinction between wealth which has 
been won by the individual taxed and 
wealth which he has inherited. Smaller 
incomes being less taxed, to allow the 
family income to count as several sepa- 
rate incomes would produce the desired 
differential result, though, in order not 
to diminish the revenue, the rate per 
pound would have to be raised in all 
grades. If such a reform cannot now 
be fully adopted, the principles involved 
should, we urge, be authoritatively 
sanctioned, and when in the future taxa- 
tion can be lowered, it should first be 
materially lowered on parents before 
any burden is taken off the childless. 
The winning of a moderate income by 
their own work, the saving and con- 
version into capital of some of this in- 
come, a saving needing care and self- 
sacrifice, the preservation of this cap- 
ital in succeeding generations in con- 
sequence of thrift, temperance, and 
perseverance—these have been different 
steps in the history of the creation of 
that part of the nation which would be 
affected by such a reform. Where any 
of these conditions exist, there the stock 
must generally be sound, and the nation 
demands a relatively more rapid multi- 
plication of its soundest stocks.” ‘ 
* Popular Science Monthly, April, 1910, pp. 313-331. 
