260 . THE STATUS OF MAN. 



lacks a necessary foundation if it starts from the assumption 

 that a people consist of fundamentally like individuals, with- 

 out attempting to verify the point. 



There ought to be no room for the two opposed views, that 

 heredity, or that environment is mainly responsible for the 

 qualities, the characters the development of a man or woman. 

 The fact, that such a difference of opinion exists, should in- 

 duce us to find a way so to state the problem that it be.omes 

 amenable to scientific, if possible to experimental investiga- 

 tion. The main point is not, whether an individual's qualities 

 are more determined by heredity or by circumstances, but 

 whether there is not some way to discover if the endless varia- 

 tion in man is simply caused by a combination of a great fluc- 

 tuating variability in the genotype and a great variety of cir- 

 cumstances, opportunities, or whether it obscures an under- 

 lying, but discoverable grouping, caused by things which tend 

 to specific diversity. In the present state of relative ignorance 

 about these things, it is difficult not to be influenced by one's 

 political opinion, clearly it should be our object to find a way 

 which would lead past opinions and toward facts. 



We are not greatly concerned with anybody's opinion, con- 

 viction, that all men are born equal, and should therefore have 

 equal rights, or with the conviction of another man or group of 

 men that they should rule a numerically greater group of men, 

 because of a special innate fitness, hereditary superiority. We 

 want to know, whether there are in man groups of individuals 

 which are so situated and so constituted that the potential 

 variability of those groups tends automatically to reduce itself, 

 in other words, species. 



And we want to learn about the causes which bring about 

 the evolution of such groups. Or rather, we want first of all to 

 find a way of discovering such facts. 



The species question is of so great an importance for politi- 

 cal philosophy as well as for Eugenics, that there must be some 

 good reason for the fact, that it has not been more an object of 

 nvestigation by either science. I think that the vast vague- 



