242 CORRADO GINI 



tion before the war, which would have been felt even if the war had not 

 occurred: more often, still, war has exerted an influence, [*but only to ac- 

 celerate or intensify the manifestation of such tendencies. 



SOCIAL ACTIONS AND REACTIONS OF THE WAR 



For the purpose of judging the effects of wars on the racial characters of 

 the populations, we must take into consideration the reactions which war 

 can cause in the military, sanitary, social organizations, etc. For instance, 

 it is beyond doubt that war determines momentarily a greater diffusion of 

 venereal diseases, but if such diffusion permanently causes a better organi- 

 zation for the prevention and cure of such diseases, it may well be that the 

 result ensuing therefore is, from a eugenic view-point, ultimately useful and 

 not harmful. 



It behooves us also not to lose sight of the remote effects of war on the 

 political organization, on the moral sentiments, on the sense of discipline, 

 and on the national and international spirit. While such factors can surely 

 exert a decisive influence on the hereditary qualities of the populations in 

 various ways, and particularly by means of the direction they give to social 

 selection, these can hardly be documented with numerical data, and the 

 treatment of them still falls within the field of study of the historian and 

 sociologist rather than within that of the statistician. 



SELECTIVE EFFECTS ON POPULATIONS 



A point of vital importance for the judgment to be passed concerning the 

 effects of wars from the view-point of eugenics is, as I have already said, 

 that of their influences on the selection, not of the individuals within a given 

 population, but of the several populations toward each other. This is a 

 most difficult and delicate matter. It presupposes, above all, a definition 

 of what a superior population is from the standpoint of eugenics. It pre- 

 supposes, furthermore, the possibility of determining how selection among 

 the different populations would work in the absence of war and of war men- 

 aces, which evidently can be done only hypothetically, since humanity, so 

 far as we know, has never been in such a condition. In any case, this is 

 another of the points which at the present state of our knowledge, escape, 

 at least for the most part, the possibility of quantitative measurement. 



CONCLUSIONS 



In conclusion, the problem of the eugenic or dysgenic effects of war on 

 the race is so vast that we can only hope to study, scientifically and with 

 probability of success, but a few particular points or aspects. These will, 



