34 



The Journal of Heredity 



of race, color, or previous condition of 

 servitude, could completely obliterate 

 the old dictum that the leopard cannot 

 change his spots, nor the Ethiopian 

 his skin. 



Recently, hov^-ever, certain students 

 and investigators began to doubt the 

 possibility of the "transmission of ac- 

 quired characteristics" which is the 

 scientific statement of the assumption 

 which we have just been considering. 

 As far back as 1869 there had been 

 published in England a book by Fran- 

 cis Galton concerning the Heredity of 

 Genius. This book atti'acted very little 

 attention at the time it was published, 

 lirol)al)ly JDCcause a near relative of 

 Galton's — Charles Darwin by name — 

 liad turned scientific attention into other 

 channels and aroused discussion of the 

 Descent of Man. the Survival of the 

 Fittest, and other lines of thought 

 which laid special emphasis upon the 

 efifect of environment upon the individ- 

 ual and the race. A new edition of 

 Galton's book was published in 191 4, 

 and in the forty-five years which 

 elapsed between the appearance of 

 these two editions has grown up what 

 we now term the science of eugenics. 



Eugenics is the science of the im- 

 provement of the human race by better 

 breeding, or, as Galton himself has 

 put it, "The science which deals with 

 all the influences that improve the in- 

 born qualities of a race." Eugenics, 

 then, relates to parenthood, primarily, 

 and to marriage secondarily, in that 

 from the eugenic standpoint the success 

 or failure of a marriage can be meas- 

 ured solely "by the number of disease- 

 resistant cultivable offspring that come 

 from it." With the environment, the 

 relation of parents to children after 

 they have been born into the world, 

 the relation of these children to human 

 society as a whole or to the particular 

 objects with which they are surrounded, 

 it has nothing whatever to do. 



With "social betterment," as we are 

 in the habit of using the term, it has 

 nc) connection. It assumes that the 



only way in which the race can be 

 bettered is by improving the breed, not 

 by improving the conditions which sur- 

 round those who are already bred ; it 

 relates — to employ once more the 

 phraseology of Galton — to nature and 

 not to nurture. 



The arguments which the eugenists 

 have employed to prove their conten- 

 tion that the nature of man is inherent 

 and cannot be altered by conditions 

 of environment are much too extended 

 to be considered in an address of this 

 sort, so I must content myself with 

 calling to your attention some few of 

 the most common demonstrations which 

 are used to make clear the position 

 which the promoters of this science 

 occupy. The arguments against this 

 point of view are much more familiar 

 to the general public, for the emphasis 

 has been laid on environment in prac- 

 tically all the activities of charity or- 

 ganizations, social betterment move- 

 ments, labor union agitation and other 

 propaganda which have been offered to 

 the public at large. In regard to eu- 

 genics there are very general and very 

 serious misconceptions, many quite 

 well-informed persons believing that 

 eugenists aim at the elimination of the 

 unfit, something after the manner of 

 the ancient Spartans who destroyed 

 all defectives who were born into their 

 state in order that their stock should be 

 uniformly rugged and intelligent. 



We learn from H. E. Jordan that 

 it is not now so common to attribute 

 the fall of Rome to degeneracy follow- 

 ing luxury and over-culture, as Gibbon 

 tried to demonstrate, or to a malarial 

 l)arasite, as urged by Dr. Ross ; nor to 

 the principle of natural racial senility 

 which was the ingenious supposition 

 of Prof. Ray Lankester ; the more 

 ])robable cause was the fact pointed out 

 by 'David Starr Jordan, that the human 

 harvest was bad ; that Rome sacrificed 

 her best manhood in war and left the 

 business of breeding new generations 

 to weaklings, cowards, and scul- 

 lions. This is exactly the situation 



