NEW LIGHT ON EUGENICS 



Psychologists' Study of Unconscious Phenomena Convinces Them That Many 



Traits of Adult Are Due to Impressions on Early Life, and Not to 



Heredity — Weakness of Some Eugenic Research^ 



Samuel C. Kohs 

 Psychologist, House of Correction, Chicago, III. 



THE purpose of this brief ]japcr 

 is not to present a new, fan- 

 tastic theory, but rather to 

 sound a reasonable note of 

 warning to some of our over-confident 

 friends who are advocating a eugenic 

 program based on slippery and insecure 

 foundations. In this age of hyper- 

 enthusiasm some of our fellow- workers 

 are inclined to permit their theories and 

 ideals to loosen their hold on the facts. 

 Both eugenists and psychologists must 

 be extremely careful not to forget that 

 in both fields we are still dealing with 

 ' ' elementa. ' ' The amount of data which 

 can be made of practical service is in 

 some fields very meager. We must not 

 permit our hopes to run riot with our 

 facts. 



The recent develo])ments of genetic 

 science have again brought to the fore, 

 after a more or less prolonged period of 

 exile, the view of the inheritance of 

 acquired characters. This rejuvena- 

 tion is receiving a great deal of accelera- 

 tion, especially among psychologists, 

 by the wider and wider acce])tance of 

 Semon's mnemic theory. The followers 

 of Semon claim that ontogeny is a 

 mnemic phenomenon , evolution depend- 

 ing on a change in ontogenetic rhythm 

 (8, p. 387). According to this view 

 nerve cell and germ cell both possess the 

 property of being im])ressi()nable, the 

 latter, of course, to a much lesser 

 degree. The cngram is the unit of 

 impression, many of these being as- 

 sociated into various different groups, 

 the whole com])leted system Ix'ing 

 called the "mneme," a Greek term 

 equivalent to "memory." It is claimed 



'Read heff)re the twelfth 

 California, August ?,, 1<>15. 



446 



that experiences, habits, will leave their 

 traces upon the organism, the germ 

 plasm only being fundamentally affected 

 after a vast number of reinforced 

 repetitions. The "imprint" having 

 been made, later generations will show 

 changes either in structure or function. 

 In this connection it is of interest to 

 note the following remarks of Jennings 

 (18): "As a material, potentially visible 

 organism, I, like the infusorian, have 

 been in existence ever since the race 

 that developed into hinnan kind began. 

 And this, for each of us, is not a figure 

 of speech, but the plain literal truth. 

 An unlimited microscopist could have 

 followed with his eyes my course, and 

 your course, down through countless 

 ages, never losing sight of the material 

 organism for an instant. ... I was in 

 actual material existence as a living 

 organism, and indeed thousands or 

 millions of years old, when the ])yramids 

 were built, and my unlimited micro- 

 scopist could give my history from that 

 time to this without a break. What 

 marks has that long history left on my 

 personality and character?" (903 904.) 

 It is this i)hylogenetic asjxxt we must 

 keep in mind in studying the heredity of 

 character and personality. 



UNIVERSAL ANCESTRY 



"Scientists have calculated that each 

 of us of course has thousands of ances- 

 tors, and thai frequent crossing of 

 ancestral lines has occurred, so that 

 practically every individual living today 

 has among his ancestors every individual 

 of the race who lived 5,000 years ago. 

 So the ancestry of the race is practically 



mmnl meeting of the American Genetic Association at Berkeley, 



