254 The Journal 
that they be studied from the standpoint 
of rural than of urban interests, if the 
welfare of the race is to be served. 
Economic changes alone cannot be ex- 
pected to solve the problem of urban de- 
generation, which has no very definite 
relation to the economic status of the 
people. From a biological or eugenic 
standpoint the palaces are as bad as the 
slums, and the middle-class neighbor- 
hoods are little better. Indeed, in some 
respects the middle-class children seem 
to have the worst of it. They do not get 
the wit-sharpening contacts of the news- 
boys and messengers, nor the oppor- 
tunities of outdoor life and travel that 
enable some of the wealthy families to 
keep healthy and run along for several 
generations, especially when they have 
country places and rural conditions and 
contacts for several months in the year. 
Such familes are admittedly the cream 
of the city populations—the exceptions 
to the rule of deterioration that is gen- 
erally recognized. 
One important advantage that our age 
has over all the others is a better under- 
standing of the fact that progress must 
be consecutive and evolutionary, that 
little or nothing is to be expected from 
revolts and revolutions that would de- 
stroy or change too suddenly any impor- 
of Heredity 
tant or well established relation of life. 
No matter how good the motive or how 
pure the justice of any revolutionary 
effort, it can be no aid to true progress 
unless it articulates in a constructive 
way with actual conditions and factors 
that determine the course of develop- 
ment. With the problems clearly ap- 
prehended, the folly of revolutionary 
measures is apparent. It is as impor- 
tant to study the means of bringing 
the right changes to pass as to deter- 
mine what the changes should be. 
To recognize the relation of eugenics 
to agriculture does not solve the prob- 
lems of our race, but it indicates the 
basis on which the problems need to be 
solved, and the danger of wasting too 
much time and effort in attempting to 
salvage the derelict populations of the 
cities. However important the prob- 
lems of urban society may be, they do 
not have fundamental significance from 
the standpoint of eugenics, because 
urban populations are essentially tran- 
sient. The city performs the function 
of elimination, while agriculture repre- 
sents the constructive eugenic condi- 
tion which must be maintained and 
improved if the development of the 
race is to continue. 
The Non-Inheritance of Acquired Characters 
It is reported that the war has put a 
stop to a breeding experiment with 
guinea-pigs, conducted in Austria by A. 
Wrzosek and A. Maciesza since 1907. 
The experiment of Dr. Brown-Sequard 
with these animals, a generation ago, 
long formed one of the pieces of evidence 
most relied upon by those who believe 
acquired characters can be transmitted 
through the germ-plasm. The experi- 
menter injured the nervous system of 
his animals in various ways, and reported 
that their offspring showed similar de- 
fects. It was soon pointed out that there 
were other explanations of the result, 
which did not at all involve the inherit- 
ance of acquired characters, and most 
geneticists long ago ceased to attach any 
‘weight to the Brown-Sequard experi- 
ments in that connection. As they con- 
tinue to be much quoted by popular 
writers, however, the Austrian biologists 
undertook to repeat the experiment and 
see if they could produce the same 
result. They failed utterly to find 
any evidence that acquired characters 
can be handed on as Brown-Sequard 
thought. 
