16 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



are affected. But this is not a case of real heredity ; 

 for the effect upon the parent is not transmitted to 

 the child. The poison has one effect upon the parent 

 who is first subjected to it, and perhaps a totally 

 different one on the offspring. It has poisoned the 

 germinal material so that subsequent generations 

 are perhaps weak and abnormal, but the children do 

 not inherit the special effects that are produced upon 

 the parents. They are instances of racial poisoning 

 and not of direct inheritance. 



In our discussion of eugenics we make reference 

 only to the characters that are handed on by the 

 germinal inheritance, and this does not include the 

 venereal diseases. In all our references to heredity 

 we have in mind only the inheritance of normal 

 healthy individuals and not the inheritance of dis- 

 ease either physical or mental. These latter phases 

 of inheritance stand in a class by themselves and 

 cannot properly be considered as matters of inherit- 

 ance in the same sense as are the normal characters 

 that the child receives from its parents. 



The conclusions of eugenics are all based upon the 

 assumption that mankind is controlled by the same 

 laws as the rest of the organic world, but, again it 

 must be pointed out that man stands in a unique 

 position. The human animal may be controlled by 

 the same laws of heredity as other animals ; but the 

 human being is more than an animal, and the charac- 

 teristics which isolate him so sharply from the rest of 

 organic nature are not features of his animal func- 

 tions at all, but are something quite distinct. It is 

 quite possible that, while his animal characters are 

 under the dominion of the common laws of heredity, 

 those characteristics which make him stand forth 



