144 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



tended to undermine the family influence. Eugenics 

 is pointing out to us in no unclear light that, what- 

 ever may be its social value, the family organization 

 as it exists to-day, at least, in modern civilization, is 

 not adapted for breeding the best type of men. The 

 conditions of civilization, instead of producing suc- 

 cessive generations better and better equipped, are 

 fostering weakness. The marriage customs of civil- 

 ization tend to transmit disease and produce in the 

 human race a general tendency toward retrogres- 

 sion. This testimony of science is another attempt 

 to overthrow the force which has been the guiding 

 principle in civilization. 



But in spite of all the scientific, political, and 

 social forces which tend to disintegrate the family 

 interest, the family, though sometimes almost dis- 

 appearing, has again and again come to the front and 

 still remains as the unit of organization in our jores- 

 ent civilization. Since the family has been able thus 

 to resist all of these adverse tendencies of the cen- 

 turies, since it survives the rise and fall of empires 

 and nations, since it survives the corruption that 

 comes from success and the misery that comes from 

 failure, since it survives the insinuating effects of 

 individualism and of scientific argument, it is very 

 clear that there are some mighty forces underlying 

 its organization, forces which are greater than the 

 exigencies of politics or of science, forces which have 

 clearly been guiding principles in the development of 

 mankind through the ages. These forces that bind 

 together the family, that reorganize it anew upon 

 the ruins of old civilizations and enable it to with- 

 stand all of the attacks made upon it, must be funda- 

 mental forces lying at the basis of civilization. These 



