DEMOCRACY AND HEREDITY-A REPLY 



Alleyne Ireland 



GOVERNMENT, as an art and a 

 science, is the only mundane 

 subject which, from a period 

 antedating the Christian Era, has 

 engaged the earnest attention ahke of 

 philosophers and men of affairs. But 

 at no time in recorded history has gov- 

 ernment been a matter of personal con- 

 cern to so large a proportion of the 

 world's inhabitants as it is today. It 

 is in the domain of government alone 

 that all the secular interests of the 

 rich and the poor, of the strong and 

 the weak, of the wise and the foolish, 

 of the young and the old, of the indus- 

 trious and the idle, of the sick and the 

 hale can be marshalled in a single 

 category. 



In relation to the problems created 

 by the war the broad question of gov- 

 ernment assumes, therefore, an impor- 

 tance which the general public, even in 

 face of its preoccupation with imme- 

 diate economic and industrial difficul- 

 ties, is beginning to recognize. 



To a lifelong student of government, 

 the signing of the armistice in Novem- 

 ber, 1918, with its promise of an 

 unprecedented strain upon all national 

 administrations, appeared to mark the 

 arrival of a moment when thoughtful 

 people would welcome a discussion of 

 government which aimed rather to ex- 

 plain general phenomena than to attack 

 or defend particular administrative pro- 

 jects. Accordingly I sent to the Journal 

 OF Heredity an article entitled "Democ- 

 racy and the Accepted Facts of Hered- 

 ity," which was 'printed in the issue for 

 December, 1918, and was discussed in 

 the May and June issues of 1919 by 

 Prof. Edwin G. Conklin, of Princeton 

 University; Mr. Madison Grant. Mr. 

 Prescott F. Hall, Prof. O. F. Cook, and 

 Mr. Robert Carter Cook. 



It will serve the convenience of all 

 readers of this article if I compress 



360 



into a few paragraphs the gist of my 

 first article. I stated, in effect: 



1. That my observation of govern- 

 ment in a score of countries had con- 

 vinced me that, with few exceptions, the 

 best governed countries were those in 

 which the mass of the people had the 

 least control over the administration of 

 public affairs. 



2. That in all worldly activities, save 

 only those linked with politics, expert 

 knowledge and firm leadership are uni- 

 versally recognized as the sources of 

 success. 



3. That in political matters we adopt 

 the opposite principle, namely, the con- 

 trol of the expert by the inexpert. 



4. That this amounts in practice to 

 the substitution of a quantitative for a 

 qualitative foundation for authority. 



5. That the worse become the con- 

 sequences of applying this principle the 

 louder do we call for its wider appli- 

 cation. 



6. That this is the expression of a 

 rhapsodical or irrational attitude toward 

 the democratic form of government, in 

 conformity with which we attach more 

 importance to the form than to the re- 

 sults of government, and refuse to draw 

 the only logical conclusion when these 

 results are, over a long period and over 

 a 'very wide area, patently and increas- 

 ingly unsatisfactory. 



7. That my dissent from the con- 

 ventional view of democracy (as we 

 practice it) as a sound, political prin- 

 ciole was based upon four main con- 

 siderations : 



(o) That the individual and not the 

 mass has been the main source of hu- 

 man advancement. 



(b) That mental and moral traits in 

 the individual are derived chiefly from 

 heredity and not from environment. 



(c) That acquired characteristics. 

 are not inheritable. 



