Conklin: Heredity and Democracy 



163 



tion of good hereditary factors may 

 give rise to great leaders, and in the most 

 distinguished famiHes an unfortunate 

 combination of bad genes may lead 

 to nonentities or worse. In short there 

 is the sharpest distinction between the 

 popular idea of heredity as expressed in 

 the "law of entail" and the law of Men- 

 del. Property, titles and privileges 

 may be entailed but not personality, 

 character or ability. No doubt the 

 chances that good or bad traits may ap- 

 pear in offspring are much greater in 

 certain families than in others, for while 

 both good and bad traits are widely 

 distributed they are not equally dis- 

 tributed. Nevertheless the actual facts 

 show that great leaders do come from 

 the lower levels of society as well as 

 from the higher. Some of the greatest 

 of the sons of men have had the most 

 lowly origin. No one can predict today 

 from what social level the great leaders 

 of tomorrow will come. Alany of the 

 leaders in the present world crisis are 

 men of humble birth, many who had the 

 most distinguished lineage have been 

 most dismal failures. Bateson some- 

 where comments on the great advantage 

 it would be if only men could be propa- 

 gated asexually as many cultivated 

 plants are, for then it would, be possible 

 to entail character and ability. 



Education or any other environmental 

 factor can serve only to bring to develop- 

 ment potentialities which are present in 

 heredit}', but, on the other hand, these 

 potentialities would never become ac- 

 tualities except for the influence of edu- 

 cation and environment. In every per- 

 son many potentialities, some of them 

 perhaps of the greatest value to society, 

 remain relatively undeveloped, and this 

 is especially true where popular educa- 

 tion is lacking or in a society with fixed 

 class distinctions. 



Mr. Ireland asserts further "that 

 assortative mating operates unremit- 

 tingly to depress one end of the moral 

 and intellectual scale and to elevate the 

 other," that there is a "constantly 

 widening gulf which separates medioc- 

 rity from talent, and the lapse of time 

 is making talented families more tal- 

 ented and forcing others further and 



further below the line of mediocrity." 

 If this is really true it should be easy 

 to demonstrate, but I am not aware 

 that any historical evidence has been 

 or can be furnished for such a con- 

 clusion. No doubt if assortative mat- 

 ing among men could be directed and 

 controlled as in the case of domestic 

 animals such results as Mr. Ireland 

 describes could be secured and in- 

 deed . all except the most talented 

 types might be eliminated, but as yet 

 these are only theoretical possibilities so 

 far as mankind is concerned. There is 

 relatively little assortative mating of 

 such a kind as would be necessary to 

 bring about these results, and even 

 where selection is most carefulh^ made 

 it is not continued for many genera- 

 tions along the same lines. When one 

 considers the tendencies among the 

 peoples of the earth as a whole, as over 

 against these theoretically possible re- 

 sults of assortative mating, there is 

 seen to be a great movement against 

 fixed hereditary classes, even against 

 national and racial segregation. Mating 

 is determined by propinquity rather 

 than by hereditary likeness, and such a 

 method can never lead to hereditary 

 uniformity. 



In conclusion there seems to be no 

 reason to conclude that heredity and 

 democracy are incompatible. The law 

 of entail is aristocratic but the law of 

 Mendel is democratic. Democracy has 

 never meant that all men are equal in 

 intellect or character. It is not a 

 denial of personal inequalities but is the 

 only genuine recognition of them; on 

 the other hand class or family distinc- 

 tions disregard personal distinctions. 

 No social system can afford to disre- 

 gard the great personages who come of 

 humble families or to exalt nonenities to 

 leadership because the}' come of great 

 families. 



It is the creed of democracy that 

 leadership should depend upon indi- 

 vidual worth and distinction and not 

 upon the greatness of some ancestor 

 whose good qualities may have passed to 

 some collateral line — but this is not the 

 faith or practice of aristocracy. After 



