254 



The Journal of Heredity 



tendency to selective elimination of the 

 more capable families is to remain 

 dominant in our civilization. At least 

 it is a hopeful sign that restrictive 

 eflfects of urbanism on human develop- 

 ment are being- recognized more clear- 

 ly. An article by Dean Inge on 

 "Democracy and the Future," in the 

 Atlantic Monthly for March, 1922, 

 contains an acute analysis of the ef- 

 fects of urlian industrial conditions as 

 responsible for mental as well as for 

 moral deterioration, and for marked 

 anti-social tendencies in Europe and 

 America. 



Alore and more I am driven to the con- 

 viction that social unrest is an ineradicable 

 disease of town life. The war is between 

 town and country; between the countryman, 

 who lives under natural and wholesome 

 conditions, and the townsman, who lives 

 under conditions which are neither natural 

 nor wholesome. Allow me to quote from 

 an American writer, Mr. Alleyne Ireland. 

 "The average voter in a large town brings 

 into politics a mentality utterly different 

 from that of the country voter. It is the 

 mind of the propertylcss wage-earner; of 

 the clerk, of the shop-assistant, of the day 

 laborer; of a man herded with other men 

 and profoundly affected by the herd-in- 

 stinct; of a man of weak individuality; of 

 a man who spends his working hours doing 

 things for other people, and his leisure 

 hours in having things done for him by 

 other people; of a man whose life is passed 

 in surroundings entirely created by ma- 

 chinery, and in circumstances where his 

 free will is perpetually constrained by the 

 contagion of an artificial environment; of 

 a man who knows (or at any rate, of whom 

 it is known) that, if he drops dead while 

 at work, he can, in normal times, be re- 

 placed in an hour by another man who will 

 dc just as well." 



Air. Ireland goes on to show that such a 

 man, whose whole existence is passed in 

 the feverish occupations of earning wages 

 and spending them, who is never brought 

 into contact with the real origins of things, 

 and is incapable of realizing the mesh of 

 causation in which he is entangled, natural- 

 ly looks to government to supply him with 

 all that he needs, and to redress all his 

 grievances. The two nations of which 

 Disraeli spoke in Sibyl arc not, as he sup- 

 posed, the rich and the poor ; they are the 

 town and the country. And industrialism 

 has thrown the balance of power into the 

 hands of that section which, through no 

 fault of its own, is stricken with an in- 

 curable malady. 



This is what my medical friends would 

 call a sombre diagnosis. It is very sombre 

 indeed, as regards my own country, with 

 its congested towns and limited rural area. 

 It does not seem to be a disease which any 

 form of government can cure. A Russian 

 revolution would cure it in a way — by kill- 

 ing the patient. The evils of industrialism 

 might, no doubt, be terminated by exter- 

 minating the industrialists. But the towns- 

 man of Europe and America has no mind 

 to commit suicide, and unlike the Russian, 

 he is capable of sane reflection. In Amer- 

 ica he will probably come round to the 

 policy which has long found favor in Aus-, 

 tralia and New Zealand; he will stop 

 immigration from the backward races. 



New Zealand has escaped the evil of 

 large cities, and has kept its population 

 almost exclusively British. This policy 

 has retarded the development of the coun- 

 try; and those who, like many Americans, 

 are affected with a pathological worship 

 of mere numbers, will think that the New 

 Zcalanders have not made the most of their 

 opportunities. The case is arguable on 

 both sides. Personally, I am disposed to 

 think that the old American stock, which, 

 until that disastrous Civil War, was the 

 finest in the world, has been too much 

 diluted during the last half century with 

 infusions of inferior blood. But America, 

 the most fortunate of countries, may make 

 with impunity mistakes which would be 

 disastrous in older nations. 



I have made a diagnosis of the malady 

 from which all civilized nations are suffer- 

 ing. I have suggested no remedy, because 

 I do not know where the remedy is to be 

 found. If the disaffection of the town- 

 dweller continues to grow and fester. Dem- 

 ocracy may fall, and civilization with it. 



Effects of Environment 



Nevertheless, the hope of finding a 

 remedy is greatly increased when the 

 catise of a disease is determined. If 

 more of our economists and construct- 

 ive reformers could see with Inge and 

 Ireland that urbanism is responsible 

 for social derangements, measures of 

 improvement might be considered with 

 better purpose. The moral and polit- 

 ical dangers of urbanism have been 

 recognized, of course, for centuries, 

 and hope has been placed in moral and 

 political remedies, but these are prov- 

 ing as ineffective in American cities, 

 as in other parts of the world. 



The effects of different environ- 

 ments upon the growth of plants and 

 animals are being determined bv scien- 



