346 The Journal 
about heredity, we know that con- 
sanguineous marriage, being the mating 
of like with like, intensifies the inherit- 
ance of the offspring, which gets a 
“‘double dose”’ of any trait which both 
parents have in common. If the traits 
are good, it will be an advantage to the 
offspring to have a double dose of them; 
if the traits are bad, it will be a dis- 
advantage. The marriage of superior 
kin should produce children better than 
the parents; the marriage of inferior 
kin should produce children even worse 
than their parents. 
In passing judgment on a proposed 
match, therefore, the question to be 
asked is not, ‘‘Are they related by 
blood?’’, but ‘‘Are they carriers of 
desirable traits?’’ That is, perhaps, a 
rather cold-blooded way to put it, but 
of Heredity 
once in a while, at least, a marriage 1s 
regarded in a cold-blooded, genetic 
light, as the number of letters to me, 
asking advice about consanguineous 
marriage, abundantly proves. 
The nature of the traits can be told 
only by a study of the ancestry. Of 
course, characters may be latent or re- 
cessive for many generations, but this is 
also the case in the population at large, 
where the chance of unpleasant results 
is so small that it would be foolish to 
weigh it. If the same congenital defect 
or undesirable trait does not appear in 
the previous three generations (includ- 
ing collaterals) of two cousins I know 
of nothing in genetics which would 
discourage them from marrying if they 
want to. 
The Inheritance of Emotional Control 
Tue Dack FamILy, a Study in Hereditary Lack of Emotional Control. 
Wendt Finlayson, Field Worker of Warren State Hospital, Warren, Pa. 
Eugenics Record Office, Bulletin No. 15. 
B. Davenport. 
Harbor, Long Island, N. Y., May, 1916. 
This study of several hundred related 
individuals, covering three generations, 
in the mountains of Pennsylvania, 
describes another large group of socially 
worthless people, the descendants of two 
Irish immigrants. The stock is char- 
acterized by “restlessness, quarrelsome- 
ness, loquacity, abuse, pugnacity, inter- 
mittent outbursts of violent temper, and 
sex offense,’’ as well as laziness, mental 
dullness, alcoholism, and the other usual 
marks of a degenerate strain. The 
preface tells us that “the present study 
is of especial value since it illustrates 
again the fact that the aberrant behavior 
of each family group is stamped with 
By Mrs. Anna 
Preface by Charles 
Pp. 46, price 15 cents. Cold Spring 
its peculiar characteristics; because into 
each a unique combination of hereditary 
elements has entered.’”’ This may be 
true, but the present study offers no 
proof, since no systematic attempt is 
made to allow for the influence of the 
environment, and no adequate evidence 
is offered that the various emotional 
traits described are in reality due to 
inheritance. But although the study 
may add nothing to our knowledge of 
heredity, it is useful sociologically as 
picturing a kind of family stock which 
is costly to the race, and unfortunately 
all too numerous in some parts of the 
United States. 
Eugenics Education in St. Louis 
The St. Louis Eugenics Educational 
Society now has nearly two _ score 
members, according to a letter from the 
secretary, C. R. Paine. The scope of 
the organization is much broader than 
the term ‘“‘eugenics”’ ordinarily includes, 
embracing as much environmental influ- 
ence as inheritance. ‘‘We feel,’ Mr. 
Paine writes, “that the present eugenic 
thought is not only very academic but 
quite chaotic in its ordering; not having 
as yet found a clear base-line for 
thinking, systemizing and methodizing. 
Consequently the present thought is 
very impersonal; seeking more after 
negative factors than positive ones; 
more after heredity than environmental- 
social influences; law than education in 
its broad popular sense; statistics than 
life.”’ 
