362 The Journal 
genic legislation to the present time 
has been mostly unwise and will prove 
a hindrance. 
We have discussed thus far only 
negative eugenics, the elimination from 
child bearing of those recognizably 
unfit. Even without Mendelian analy- 
sis it seems probable that ultimately 
much may be accomplished by the 
acceptance of more wholesome ideals of 
attractiveness in marriage. Through 
centuries of advance in culture, physical 
attractions have come to be largely 
supplanted by spiritual qualities as 
stimuli to choice in marriage. This 
change shows how possible it is to modify 
the standards even in this the most 
vital, most biological, of all human 
relations. We may surely anticipate 
bringing the human stock into a condi- 
tion more nearly approximating its 
present best by removing the distinctly 
undesirable types. 
CONSTRUCTIVE EUGENICS 
Positive eugenics involving controlled 
marriage for the sake of bringing to- 
gether individuals whose children would 
be likely to be especially valuable to 
society, seems unattainable without 
violence to the principle that love 
between husband and wife is the safest, 
the most beautiful, foundation for the 
home, and that the home is essential 
to the best type of society. Possibly in 
the case of a people like the French, or 
still more the Japanese, among whom 
marriage is arranged by the families 
rather than the individuals involved, 
considerations of positive eugenics might 
come to be controlling, as considerations 
of wealth and social status are today 
in large measure. But any attempt to 
unite a particular man and a particular 
woman in marriage for the sake of 
establishing the resultant family in 
wealth or social position or even in 
innate wholesomeness of body and mind 
seems to us in America not only repellant 
but socially dangerous. Man is so 
sensitive spiritually to the environing 
atmosphere, especially within the family, 
that this should be of the sweetest, most 
ennobling type, and to this end nothing 
else is so important as that there should 
of Heredity 
be between the man and woman found- 
ing the family that indefinable attraction 
we call love, a thing which in primitive 
man was probably mostly physical, but 
which at its best today is permeated and 
suffused with spiritual quality of a type 
which does most to make a home 
environment that molds the children 
into worthy members of society. 
The complexity of the problem of 
eugenics is evident, and the great 
difficulty of accomplishing to the full 
the biological result of good breeding 
without sacrificing the nurtural influ- 
ences which, while less fundamental, are 
still essential. Marriage is a most vital 
thing to the individual and it is socially 
the most significant of all human 
relations. The interests involved are 
complex and may oppose each other. 
When individual and social interests 
clash, of course those of the individual 
give way. The bearing of children is 
not an individual right, but a social 
privilege, which may be bestowed or 
withheld as social welfare shall demand. 
The only question is, of course, which 
way social welfare lies—no easy question 
to approach, much less solve. 
Our discussion of eugenics thus far has 
dealt only with the problem of bringing 
mankind as a whole nearly to the level 
of its present best. This is ordinarily 
what is meant by eugenics. There is a 
somewhat distinct problem—that of 
the evolution of mankind to a condition 
more advanced even than his present 
best, the bringing of the race to a point 
beyond the best yet known even in the 
most desirable individuals. Is there, 
or is there not, possibility of indefinite 
advance in humankind? The question 
of method of securing advance, a 
question we have already discussed 
sufficiently to show its complexity, 
enters here, as it does into eugenics. 
But there is a further question of 
material upon which to work. We have 
convincing evidence that changes ef- 
fected in an individual through educa- 
tion are not heritable. We have seen 
also that there are two types of variation 
producing new qualities which in the 
one case are heritable, in the other not. 
Only heritable qualities, stable varia- 
tions, mutations, can serve as a basis for 
