LARGER PROBLEMS OF ANTHROPOLOGY 461 



well as over subhuman nature and these ways remain for the 

 future to trace. 



A related problem, although minor in itself, has recently risen 

 into prominence through the impetus of importation oversea; it 

 is that of "degeneracy." The observational data for the idea of 

 human retrogression are apparently voluminous (though seen to be 

 mainly of opposite meaning in the light of modern human know- 

 ledge) and the notion is by no means new; but the ratiocinative 

 basis of the recent fad is obviously chaotic, e. g., in that an indi- 

 vidual is classed as "degenerate" by reason of the inheritance of 

 ancestral characters, or, in other words, because he is no better 

 than his sire or grandsire. True, if normal man is rising to suc- 

 cessively higher planes of physical a-nd mental perfection through 

 constructive exercise, as modern anthropology so clearly indi- 

 cates, the unfortunate who is no better than his ancestry is indeed 

 below his proper place in the scheme of humanity though not 

 degenerate, but merely imregenerate (in non-ecclesiastical sense). 

 It is also true that maleficent exercise may produce cumulative 

 and apparently aberrant effects, just as does the beneficent exer- 

 cise normal to mankind, the one yielding Nero and Billy the Kid 

 as the other Shakespeare and Bacon (twin luminaries of intel- 

 lectual history); but its end is destruction, with the consequent 

 elimination of the criminal, while its middle merely marks lower 

 layers in the constantly ascending stream of humanity. Natu- 

 rally a theme filling tomes and flooding lighter literature for years 

 is too large for full analysis in a paragraph; it must suffice to note 

 that the "degeneracy" of the day was not unfitly characterized 

 even so early as when aphorism foreran writing, and the proverb 

 beginning "Put a beggar on horseback" gained currency. The 

 great facts are (1) that less vigorous individuals fall short of the 

 mean progress of their fellows in such wise as to get out of harmony 

 with the institutions framed by their leaders, and (2) that less 

 vigorous peoples fall behind contemporary lawmakers in such 

 wise that their institutions are inferior to those of progressive na- 

 tions; while under the conditions of modern life laggards and 

 leaders commingle so freely that the differences are emphasized 

 and kept in mind. Nor are these differences slight or meaning- 

 less; they touch the very fiber of living and being so deeply that 

 primal savages cannot share the thought of those in any higher 

 culture-stage, that barbaric serf and despot are wholly alien to 

 subjects and citizens, and that subjects are out of place among 

 citizens. So every advanced nation has its quota of aliens through 

 foreign or ill-starred birth and defective culture, who can be lifted 

 to the level of its institutions only through a regeneration extend- 

 ing to both body and mind, both work and thought they are 



