HEREDITY AND POLITICS 137 



of by a type of inhabitant accustomed to a lower 

 standard of cleanliness and hygiene, the result may 

 be a marked increase in the less desirable elements 

 of the population, while the better type of man will 

 move off, and if he does' not leave the country he will 

 be squeezed again on to the border-line of subsistence 

 by pressure from below. If the improved environment 

 be due to the exertions and foresight of the people who 

 will profit by it, it will probably have the desired effect. 

 If it be the result of action from above, and lead to 

 some species of migration of an inferior type, the 

 biological results of the improvement require to be 

 most carefully scanned. Herein lies the danger of all 

 environmental improvement without adequate con- 

 sideration of racial effects. Without due forethought, 

 it is as easy to sow tares as corn, and where the human 

 race is concerned there is no annual harvest or stock- 

 taking, at which the one can be separated from the 

 other. Nor, indeed, is there any sharp line of de- 

 marcation between the two. All we can say is that 

 there are tares and there is corn, with every degree of 

 human imperfection intervening ; and we may safely 

 assert that the tares are usually the most prolific and least 

 exacting organisms of the two. With human beings, 

 as in the animal and vegetable worlds, it is the higher 

 types who require the greater care and consideration. 



" The Eugenics of Migrants " is the title of a 

 suggestive paper which was recently published in the 

 Eugenics Review. 1 Nearly every species is limited to a 

 restricted environment, in which its specially developed 



1 By Major Charles E. Woodruff, M.D. Eugenics Review, January 1911. 



