322 Heredity and Environment 



2. Perpetuation and Improvement of the Species the Highest 



Ethical Obligation. — Among all organisms the race or species is 

 of paramount importance. Race preservation, not self preserva- 

 tion, is the first law of nature. Among all organisms the perpetu- 

 ation and welfare of the race are cared for by the strongest in- 

 stincts. In very many species of animals reproduction means the 

 death of the individual. The breeding instinct drives every male 

 bee, every male and female salmon, to its certain death in order 

 that the race may be perpetuated. Among the higher organisms 

 the strongest of all the instincts are those connected with repro- 

 duction. But in the human species intellect and freedom come in 

 to interfere with instinct. The reproductive instincts are not 

 merely controlled by reason, as they should be, but to an alarming 

 extent they are thwarted and perverted among intelligent people. 



The struggle to be free is part of a great evolutionary move- 

 ment, but the freedom must be a sane one which neither injures 

 others nor eliminates posterity. The feminist movement in so 

 far as it demands greater intellectual and political freedom for 

 women may be a benefit to the race but in so far as it demands 

 freedom from marriage and reproduction it is suicidal. The cry 

 of Rachel, "Give me children or I die," has been turned by many 

 modern women to, "I'd rather die than have children." If the 

 demand for individual freedom blinds men and women to their 

 racial obligations the inevitable decadence and extinction of their 

 lines must follow. In every age and country where demands for 

 personal freedom have been most insistent and extreme, where 

 men and especially women have demanded freedom from the bur- 

 dens of bearing and rearing children as well as from other natural 

 social obligations, the end has been degeneration and extinction. 



This has been the history of many talented races and families 

 of mankind. The decay of the most gifted races of the ancient 

 world, especially those of Greece and Rome, was not due pri- 

 marily to bad heredity nor to bad material environment but rather 

 to the growth of luxury and selfishness and unrestricted free- 

 dom ; marriage became unfashionable, immorality was wide- 



