84 Social Environment 



facts to the exclusion of all other influences, 

 the following item may be noted. A recent 

 writer^ states that not only the impulse to sui- 

 cide, but even the preference for a particular 

 means, is transmitted by heredity. He gives 

 as proof the case of a certain family in which 

 three members in successive generations at- 

 tempted suicide by cutting the left arm. The 

 author could scarcely have been familiar with 

 the psychology of suggestion, or he would at 

 least have considered the part it must have 

 played in the tragedy. Such a shortsighted 

 view is the natural result of the fact that the 

 science of eugenics has been developed mainly 

 from the biologic pomt of view by persons 

 unappreciative of or unfamiliar with psycho- 

 logical and sociological interpretations. Natu- 

 rally, persons with such an outlook can see no 

 cause for poverty and other social maladjust- 

 ment except defective germ plasm. Bad sani- 

 tation, defective education, speeded industries, 

 and unearned dividends receive scant attention. 



2. Recent Data on Heredity 



But the biological eugenist answers his crit- 

 ics with a challenge. He brings forward a 



1 Whetham and Whetham, An Introduction to Eugenics, 

 p, 24. Bowes & Bowes, Cambridge, 1912, 



