DEGENERATION 



1741 



DEGREE 



In Plants and Animals. Degeneration in 

 plants and animals is due to several causes, 

 chief among which are lack of nourishment, 

 unsuitable location and breeding for special 

 purposes. 



The first and second causes may be illus- 

 trated by plants growing year after year in 

 a poor soil or in an unsuitable climate, or both. 

 The plants will be smaller than those from 

 which the seed was taken. If the seed from 

 these smaller plants is planted season after 

 season an inferior plant, from which no better 

 stock can be obtained, is the final result. This 

 is equally true of animals. The wild horses 

 formerly found in large numbers on the Great 

 Plains in North America and still found in 

 South America are far inferior to the stock 

 from which they sprang. 



The second cause is breeding (which see). 

 To illustrate, the development of the double 

 rose was accomplished at the expense of the 

 power of the rose to reproduce itself from its 

 seed. The development of the dairy cow is 

 at the expense of the animal's beef-producing 

 qualities, and the development of the draft 

 horse is at the expense of speed. Degeneration 

 of this sort is not injurious as a whole. The 

 breeder secures the perfection of certain quali- 

 ties for a given purpose, for which he is willing 

 to sacrifice the other qualities. 



Mental and Moral Degeneration. Careful 

 study of crime and delinquency shows beyond 

 question a close relation between physical and 

 intellectual and moral degeneration. By far 

 the larger number of boys and girls brought 

 before juvenile courts are in some respects 

 physically as well as mentally defective. The 

 offspring of defectives are also likely to be 

 defective; hence degeneracy tends to produce 

 degeneracy. There are, of course, exceptions 

 to this rule, since now and then a member of 

 a family in excellent standing is a degenerate. 

 Again, degeneracy may be the result of bad 

 habits which have been followed so long that 

 the victim is unable to regain his former mental 

 and moral state. Alcohol is a potent cause of 

 physical, mental and moral degeneration. See 

 HABIT. 



Mental and moral degeneration may apply 

 to a community as well as to an individual. 

 Under slavery entire peoples, as, for example, 

 some of the tribes of Central Africa, have been 

 reduced to a condition little above that of the 

 lower animals. In these cases the degenera- 

 tion is not entirely confined to the enslaved 

 people; the master is said to be affected as 



well as the servant. "He who is served is 

 limited in his independence," and no one sus- 

 tains the relation of master to these almost 

 savage African slaves without themselves being 

 adversely affected. 



Living under unhealthful conditions, such 

 as those which the people of the crowded tene- 

 ment districts in large cities are compelled to 

 endure, is another fruitful source of society 

 degeneration, and certain occupations, espe- 

 cially those connected with the distribution 

 of intoxicating liquors and those which require 

 no intellectual effort, produce a similar effect. 



Principles. Certain principles underlie all 

 forms of degeneration. They are: 



1. A function or an organ Is weakened and 

 finally killed by lack of use. A good illustration 

 Is the vermiform appendix in the human body, 

 which is believed once to have been a useful 

 organ, -aiding digestion, but which is now not 

 only useless but in some cases dangerous (see 

 VERMIFORM APPENDIX). 



2. A persistent course in degeneration in time 

 leads to a state from which it Is impossible to 

 return to the former condition. This Is equally 

 true of plants and of animals. A draft horse 

 cannot be developed out of a wild pony, neither 

 can a larger variety of corn be produced from the 

 small corn grown in the northernmost part of the 

 corn-growing regions. 



3. In man, physical degeneration lies at the 

 foundation of most of his intellectual and moral 

 degeneration. See CRIMINOLOGY. W.F.R. 



DEGREE, IN MATHEMATICS. Because the 

 circumference of every circle is 3.14159+ times 

 its diameter, it is necessary in any case to know 

 only one of these dimensions in order to 

 learn the other (see CIRCLE). Therefore to 

 compute the length of an arc of a circle of 

 known diameter, we need only be told how 

 large a part the arc is of the whole circum- 

 ference. This is one reason why it has been 

 found convenient to say that the circumference 

 of a circle is made up of 360 equal parts called 

 degrees, and to subdivide each degree into 

 60 minutes and each minute into 60 seconds. 

 There are many other advantages of this 

 division of a circle. Because of it, angles 

 may be measured, thus making possible the 

 science of trigonometry, without which en- 

 gineers could not survey or mariners steer 

 with accuracy. It also gives a means of de- 

 scribing the exact location of points on the 

 earth's surface. More about the degree will 

 be found in the articles ANGLE; CIRCLE; LATI- 

 TUDE; LONGITUDE; MERIDIAN. 



Measurements in degrees are indicated by 

 symbols, as in 40 42' 16", which means 40 de- 

 grees, 42 minutes, 16 seconds. 



