RACIAL ELEMENTS IN SWEDEN 



25 



race biologist tries to answer, are of extraordinary importance for the whole world. 

 Meanwhile they must have access to a very comphrehensive material. 



The investigations in heredity made in modern times, teaches us that the 

 natural type (genotype), developed during the course of hundreds and thousands 

 of years, in different peoples and races, is the essential type and that it never 

 wholly repeats itself in different individuals except in the case of such twins 

 who have their origin in one and the same ovum or egg. More or less diverse 

 hereditary combinations form therefore as a rule, the groundwork of every new 

 individual who is conceived. Within certain bounds the environment afterwards 

 becomes a force causing still further dissimilarities, but these alterations in one 

 or another direction (modifications) acquired during life do not change the 

 natural disposition. 



Mankind, like all the other higher organisms, can be compared to a mosaic. 

 The many small pieces, which correspond to the different hereditary units (or 

 factors) taken together form a whole picture. These bits can be combined in 

 varying patterns and so give rise to different natural types, different individuals, 

 and, in the course of time, different races and nations. 



It is certain that the hereditary substance or natural type in different indivi* 

 duals, peoples and races may be quite different. In the common language there 

 are many phraces which bring to light the fact that mankind half unconsciously, 

 recognizes this, for instance, He (or she) belongs to a good race, That nation 

 is a strong race*, One can tell the race, etc. 



The different dispositions, the outward characteristics as well as the inner, 

 are inherited according to a fixed law, each one for itself. It remains now to 

 ascertain how this happens, examining characteristic after characteristic. This work 

 is now eagerly being done in different countries. A great deal of knowledge 

 has really been won already, but the greater part still remains to be done. 



A careful study of individuals belonging to different races and nations is 

 necessary, and the work must be done systematically and exactly. 



In a free country with free institutions, a stratification among the people, 

 layer after layer, arises of itself. One can distinguish a natural aristocracy, (the 

 result of fortunate hereditary combinations and a favourable environment) a middle 

 class, and a lower class, which in ancient days formed the so-called serf or thrall class. 

 As a rule these three layers are fairly unlike each other, in some countries to 

 such an extent, that they are formed of wholly different racial elements. For* 

 tunately Sweden is not one of these, but one finds even here that among Swedes 

 belonging to different classes, a not unimportant difference can be observed in 

 the combinations of race. 



A people composed of good racial elements creates for itself good conditions of 

 society, if it is allowed to develop freely, a people of bad race is not capable of this. 



There are at present (as in the past of the world) nations of wholly diffe* 

 rent quality, some are clever, enterprising and vigorous, others are weak, sluggish 

 and lacking in vitality, in a word nations that are dying out. A whole series 

 of different grades are to be found between these two poles. 



No nation remains altogether unaltered during the course of time, it developes and 

 becomes ennobled or it degenerates and becomes debased. History shows us many 



