Control of Heredity: Eugenics 275 



feeble folk, make their houses in the rocks." This is an illustra- 

 tion of the great law of evolution, the survival of the strong and 

 capable and intelligent, and even though ideal justice be meted 

 out to weaker peoples, dominant races will still dominate and 

 possess the earth. The only recourse which the inferior peoples 

 have, and it is a terrible revenge, is to amalgamate with the super- 

 ior race and thus lower its hereditary qualities. 



From the way in which primitive races have gone down before 

 more cultured ones there is reason to believe that in general the 

 principle of the elimination of the unfit and the survival of the 

 fit has characterized human evolution no less than that of other 

 organisms. Undoubtedly intelligence has played a great part in 

 the evolution of man, as is at once apparent when we consider the 

 infinitely varied experiments by which he has worked his way 

 from savagery to civilization. And yet he has not consciously set 

 before himself an evolutionary goal to be attained by intelligent 

 attention to principles of good breeding. 



II. Can Human Evolution Be Controlled? 



All that man now is he has come to be without conscious human 

 guidance. If evolution has progressed from the amoeba to man 

 without human interference, if the great progress from ape-like 

 men to the most highly civilized races has taken place without 

 conscious human control, the question may well be asked, Is it 

 possible to improve on the natural method of evolution? It may 

 not be possible to improve on the method of evolution and yet 

 by intelligent action it may be possible to facilitate that method. 

 Man cannot change a single law of nature but he can put himself 

 into such relations to natural laws that he can profit by them. 



1. Selective Breeding the only Method of Improving the Race. 

 — It is surely not possible to improve on nature's method of elim- 

 inating the worst lines from reproduction. This has been the chief 

 factor in the establishment of races of domesticated animals and 

 cultivated plants, though as we have seen it has probably had 

 nothing to do with the origin of mutations. The history of such 



