94 



The Journal of Heredity 



utilized in any objective spirit the im- 

 mensely valuable record we commonly 

 call "history." One point at least can 

 be certainly made, that not one of the 

 hostile reviewers has taken any point 

 to point method of evaluation. They 

 do not appear to be actuated by a de- 

 sire for truth. For instance, such gen- 

 eral assertions as the following are fre- 

 quently found among the reviews for 

 the most part written during the late 

 European War: "All that can be said 

 of some of the statements brought for- 

 ward by Mr. Grant as- scientific evi- 

 dence of his thesis is that they are 

 incorrect." — London Times, May 3rd, 



The phraseology is "some of the 

 statements," but unless the sentence is 

 read very carefully it gives the impres- 

 sion that most of the statements are 

 incorrect. This is the only sentence 

 quoted by the Book Rcvicxv Digest in 

 its general summary of all important 

 reviews for February, 191 8. The mark 

 minus ( — ) is placed against it. This 

 is a good illustration of the sort of 

 injustice that may be done a Ijook when 

 editors are war-mad. The London 

 Times then attacked two comparatively 

 unimportant and probably erroneous as- 

 sertions of ]\Ir. Grant. First, that the 

 Nordics were killing themselves ofif in 

 the Great War, and second, that human 

 characters obey ]Mendelian laws during 

 their hereditary descent. 



The Dial, May 17th, 1917, said: 

 "The science is so ])ure that it is al- 

 together impercei^tible." "This form 

 of arrogance is not new in the history 

 of civilization." 



"Anti-Democracy" is the heading of 

 the review in the Athenaeum, July. 

 1917. "It is an axiom with Mr. Grant 

 — for he makes not the least attempt to 

 prove it — that heredity is more than 

 environment." (The present edition 

 gives the references.) "We had thought 

 that this species of race ecstacy, this 

 enthusiasm for laying stress on the 

 racial basis of European history, with 

 which the name of Houston Stewart 

 Chaml)erlain is associated, was going 



out of fashion even in Germany where 

 it was introduced to give an appearance 

 of scientific support to the position of 

 the Junkers, and to bolster up the 

 divine right of kingship. But that a 

 writer in democratic America should 

 give currency to these doctrines is pass- 

 ing strange." This review appears to 

 be actuated by war-emotion. 



In the Unpopular Review for Octo- 

 ber, 191 7, we find a criticism directed 

 against Mr. Grant's not giving greater 

 credit to the French nation : "We are 

 asked to believe that XlXth century 

 democratic France was decadent ; a 

 glance at the roll of French fame for 

 the last hundred years is sufficient reply. 

 Perhaps Cuvier, Comte, Claude Ber- 

 nard, Taine, Pasteur were all Teutons? 

 Such an assertion in most cases is diffi- 

 cult to disprove. Renan. who was a 

 believer in race, and a great admirer 

 of Germany, gave his ethnic formula 

 as "a Celto-Gascon miongrel, with a 

 dash of Lappish blood" and added 

 modestly: 'This ought to correspond to 

 perfect imbecility.' Henri Poincare 

 was a mathematician of rare genius ; it 

 is said that in the last years of his 

 career he suffered from the solitude of 

 the discoverer voyaging through strange 

 seas of thought alone. We have a 

 minute physiological description of him 

 l)y Dr. Toulouse. This pioneer was an 

 Alpine, a 'vile brachy'." 



Such a paragraph illustrates very 

 well the childish futility of attempting 

 to settle generalizations in fields of 

 history by citing a few instances. As 

 a matter of fact, France has fallen be- 

 hind during the last three generations 

 very markedly in her production of 

 scientists of international eminence as 

 compared with England and Germany 

 and quite beyond the expectation from 

 changes in the total population. This 

 assertion is based on statistical research 

 the abstract of which was published in 

 the Psychological Bulletin, February 

 15th, 1914. 



A very unfavorable review appeared 

 in Vanity Fair for October, 1918. It 

 occupied a page and a half of this 



