126 



The Journal of Heredity 



are driven to a new locality, as hap- 

 pened in the mining regions; but most 

 are prevented from coming into exist- 

 ence at all. 



What is the result then of the migra- 

 tion of a million persons of lower level 

 into a country where the average is of a 

 higher level. Considering the world as 

 a whole, there are, after a few years, 

 two million persons of the lower type 

 in the world, and probably from half a 

 million to a million less of the higher 

 type. The proportion of lower to higher 

 in the country from which the migra- 

 tion goes may remain the same; but 

 in the country receiving it, it has risen. 

 Is the world as a whole the gainer? 



Of course, the euthenist says at once 

 that these immigrants are improved. 

 We may grant that, although the im- 

 provement is probably much exag- 

 gerated. You cannot make bad stock 

 into good by changing its meridian, any 

 more than you can turn a cart horse into 

 a hunter by putting it into a fine stable, 

 or make a mongrel into a fine dog by 

 teaching it tricks. But such improve- 

 ment as there is involves time, expense 

 and trouble; and, when it is done, has 

 anything been gained ? Will anyone say 

 that the races that have supplanted the 

 old Nordic stock in New England are 

 any better, or as good, as the descen- 

 dants of that stock would have been if 

 their birth rate had not been lowered? 



Further, in addition to the purely 

 biological aspects of the matter, there 

 are certain psychological ones. Al- 

 though a cosmopolitan atmosphere fur- 

 nishes a certain freedom in which strong 

 congenital talents can develop, it is a 

 question whether as many are not 

 injured as helped by this. Indeed, 

 there is considerable evidence to show 

 that for the production of great men, a 

 certain homogeneity of environment is 

 necessary. The reason of this is very 

 simple. In a homogeneous community, 

 opinions on a large number of matters 

 are fixed. The individual does not have 

 to attend to such things ; but is free to go 

 ahead on some special line of his own, to 

 concentrate to his limit on his work, 

 even though that work be fighting the 

 common opinions. But in a community 



of many races, there is either cross- 

 breeding or there is not. If there is, 

 the children of such cross-breeding are 

 liable to inherit two souls, two tempera- 

 ments, two sets of opinions, with the 

 result in many cases that they are unable 

 to think or act strongly and consistently 

 in any direction. The classic examples 

 are Cuba, Mexico and Brazil. On the 

 other hand, if there is no cross-breeding, 

 the diversity exists in the original races, 

 and in a community full of diverse 

 ideals of all kinds much of the energy of 

 the higher type of man is dissipated, and 

 in two ways. First, in the intellectual 

 field there is much more doubt about 

 everything, and he tends to weigh, dis- 

 cuss and agitate many more subjects, 

 in order to arrive at a conclusion amid 

 the opposing views. Second, in prac- 

 tical affairs, much time and strength 

 have to be devoted to keeping things 

 going along the old lines, which could 

 have been spent in new research and 

 development. In how many of our 

 large cities today are men of the highest 

 type spending their whole time fighting, 

 often in vain, to maintain standards of 

 honesty, decency and order, and in try- 

 ing to compose the various ethnic ele- 

 ments, who should be free to build new 

 structures upon the old! 



The moral seems to be this : Eugenics 

 among individuals is encouraging the 

 propagation of the fit, and limiting or 

 preventing the multiplication of the 

 unfit. World eugenics is doing pre- 

 cisely the same thing as to races con- 

 sidered as wholes. Immigration re- 

 striction is a species of segregation on a 

 large scale, by which inferior stocks can 

 be prevented from both diluting and 

 supplanting good stocks. Just as .we 

 isolate bacterial invasions, and starve 

 out the bacteria by limiting the a^ea and 

 amount of their food supply, so we can 

 compel an inferior race to remain in its 

 native habitat, where its own multipli- 

 cation in a limited area will, as with all 

 organisms, eventually limit its numbers 

 and therefore its influence. On the 

 other hand, the supeiior races, more self- 

 limiting than the others, with the 

 benefits of more space and nourishment 

 will tend to still higher levels. 



