RACIAL BETTERMENT 653 



progress in the future must be in large part along the 

 same general lines as in the past. So long as there are 

 environmental handicaps that have not been fully over- 

 come, so long as any individual is unable to realize his 

 inherent possibilities because the conditions for such 

 realization have not been fulfilled, there is still room for 

 and need of effort. Achievement has gone so far that in 

 imagination a time can be foreseen when man will have 

 attained to complete control over his environment. Only 

 when that time has come will progress in the direction 

 here outlined come to an end. 



Racial Betterment. — Although progress by control- 

 ling the environment might conceivably thus come to 

 an end, the progress of humanity need not stop, since 

 there continues the ever-present possibility of actual im- 

 provement of the race. It will be recalled that in the 

 discussion of progress thus far the point has been stressed 

 that the achievements which mankind has made are not 

 to be accounted for by demonstrable improvement in 

 human quality. When mankind with his present abili- 

 ties has gone as far as he can, there will still remain 

 possibilities of breeding better men. It is true that to 

 obtain individuals superior to the best that have yet 

 lived is a feat of great difficulty, theoretically as well as 

 practically. But to raise the general average of the race, 

 physically, intellectually, and emotionally, is entirely 

 feasible, requiring nothing more than the application to 

 the human family of well known principles of genetics. 

 There are, to be sure, great difficulties in applying these 

 principles, even to the extent of raising the average by 

 cutting down the number of distinctly inferior individ- 

 uals. To do what is even more desirable, viz., to bring 

 about an actual increase in the number of superior indi- 

 viduals, is a matter of greater practical difficulty. It may 

 be that mankind will never be able to overcome these 

 difficulties entirely. It is quite sure that at best their 

 solution can only be gradual, and — because of the in- 



