Social Environment and Eugenics 87 



elaborate study of royal families/ has given 

 very conclusive evidence of the same fact, and 

 has further extended his proof to include moral 

 qualities. By computing correlations he has 

 shown that both mental and moral traits are 

 transmitted, with a lessening degree of intens- 

 ity in successive generations. He does not 

 claim, of course, that results could be predicted 

 in any individual case, but rather that in the 

 groupings of large numbers of cases results 

 regularly appear that can be interpreted only 

 as indications of ancestral influences. Other 

 studies in the same direction might be cited, 

 notably the investigation into the transmission 

 of feeble-mindedness,- but probably enough has 

 been said to suggest the nature of the work 

 that has been done. 



The biologists have, therefore, made it per- 

 fectly clear that the force of heredity in deter- 

 mining mental and moral traits is considerable. 

 And in the absence of similar proof of the 

 force of the social environment, it is perhaps 

 natural that they should regard social influ- 

 ences as negligible, and should actually suggest 



1 Woods, F. A., Mental and Moral Heredity in Royalty. 

 Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1906. 



2 Goddard, H. H., The Kallikak Family. The Macmil- 

 lan Co., New York, 1912. 



