INTERMINGLING OF RACES 263 



This being true, racial crossing may be desirable or un- 

 desirable, depending first on whether the stocks concerned 

 possess a preponderance of desirable characteristics, and 

 second, on whether they are extremely differentiated or 

 not. It may be questioned whether all existing peoples 

 do not possess some desirable traits and hence hold out 

 the possibility of the production of some superior indi- 

 viduals when crossed with presumably superior stock. 

 Nevertheless, even as in breeding for quality in domestic 

 animals, the frequency with which the superior individual 

 is obtained by such a procedure is so low that economi- 

 cally radical experiments are unwise. Given some pre- 

 sumption of equally desirable contribution in the union, 

 the wisdom of a particular racial cross is governed by the 

 number of hereditary differences brought together. The 

 hybridization of extremes is undesirable because of the 

 improbability of regaining the merits of the originals, yet 

 hybridization of somewhat nearly related races is almost a 

 prerequisite to rapid progress, for from such hybridiza- 

 tion comes that moderate amount of variability which pre- 

 sents the possibility of the super-individual, the genius. 

 To produce greatness a nation must have some 

 wretchedness, for such is the law of Mendelian recom- 

 bination; but the nation that produces wretchedness 

 is not necessarily in the way of producing greatness. 

 There must be racial mixture to induce variability, but 

 these racial crosses must not be too wide else the chances 

 are too few and the time required is too great for the 

 proper recombinations making for inherent capacity to 

 occur. Further, there must be periods of more or less 

 inbreeding following racial mixtures, if there is to be any 

 high probability of isolating desirable extremes. A third 



