CHAPTER XIII 



THE INTEBMINGLING OF RACES AND NATIONAL 



STAMINA 



A PROPOSAL to discuss racial mixtures as a final topic 

 in such a condensed treatment of inbreeding and outbreed- 

 ing as is presented here, may be deemed somewhat pre- 

 sumptuous, both because of the intricacy and difficulty of 

 the subject itself and because of the immense amount of 

 partially codified knowledge relating to such matters 

 which has been gathered by anthropologists. On the con- 

 trary, these very facts are the logical reasons for ventur- 

 ing to indicate how and where the conclusions of 

 experimental genetics can be applied to the problems 

 knoA\Ti collectively as race problems. 



The data of anthropology are largely those of the his- 

 torical type in which the control of variables is always 

 uncertain and often impossible. It is obvious that the 

 nature of the material to a certain extent limits direct 

 investigation in this field to the historical and the statisti- 

 cal methods of research. Generally speaking, one cannot 

 use man as the subject of quantitative laboratory experi- 

 ments. Yet the difficulties involved demand varied 

 methods of attack; and since genetics has furnished a 

 satisfactory interpretation of heredity by dealing with the 

 lower organisms and has proved that the same mode of 

 inheritance prevails in man, it is inexcusable if the broad 

 ethnological application of the results is neglected. Of 

 course, one must not expect the impossible. Problems so 

 complex can have no genetical solutions permitting 

 predictions in individual cases, but the principles do 



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