280 THE STATUS OF MAN. 



grants ? In so far as the aberrant individuals are found in one 

 species and are alike in one characteristic difference, they con- 

 stitute a variety. If among the Sicilians coming in one 

 year, there are three red-haired ones, these, three constitute a 

 red-haired variety. There need not be any family relationship, 

 and it is probable that they will never have red-haired descend- 

 ants. And we have to consider a colour-blind German, and an 

 idiot Polish girl, and two Hungarian babies with hare-lips, as 

 candidates for citizenship, who differ from normal Germans, 

 and Poles, and Hungarians in varietal characters, in things 

 which in all probability will have no continuity. The Eugenists 

 have concerned themselves almost exclusively with the inher- 

 itance of such varietal characters, until it looks to the unin- 

 itiated that these things, which are certainly heritable, are im- 

 portant for the welfare of the nation, and as if any measure 

 which excludes the genetically defective persons from procre- 

 ating is necessarily beneficial and will do its bit toward an ulti- 

 mate betterment of the "race". Underlying this idea, is a wholly 

 erroneous conception of the real nature of specific stability, and 

 of the effect of selection within relatively pure species. Species 

 are pure when a very great majority is pure for a certain type. 

 Small minorities have no chance, for the simple fact that their 

 descendants have always again one normal parent, and will 

 mate with normals and their children will mate with normals 

 and so on. And we know, that there can be considerable cros- 

 sing with other species without loss of specific identity. Colour- 

 blind people have no chance to procreate their kind through 

 generations, and bleeders may have an occasional bleeding 

 grand-child, but the traces of their defect will have disappeared 

 in a few generations. They will not affect the type of the spe- 

 cies. On the other hand, the persons of musical genius, or of 

 inventive genius, or of exceptional inherited ability of any kind, 

 have no chance to heighten the status of the species into which 

 they belong or merge. They have no future in this sense, just 

 as little as the colour-blind and the feeble-minded have. A 

 species is a remarkably stable thing, and for purposes of cros- 



