CONTROL OF HEREDITY: EUGENICS 405 



aged to increase and multiply. This is 

 apparently the only way in which we may 

 hope to improve permanently the human 

 breed. 



2. No Improvement in Human Heredity 

 within Historic Times. — The improvement of 

 environment and opportunities for individual 

 development enables men at the present day 

 to get more out of their heredity than was 

 possible in the past. "The advance of civiliza- 

 tion" has meant only improvement of environ- 

 ment. But neither environment nor training 

 have changed the hereditary capacities of man. 

 There has been no perceptible improvement in 

 human heredity within historic times, nothing 

 comparable with the changes which have oc- 

 curred in domesticated animals. Indeed no 

 modern race of men is the equal of certain an- 

 cient ones. Galton has pointed out the fact 

 that in the little country of Attica in the cen- 

 tury between 530 and 430 B. C. there were 

 produced fourteen illustrious men, one for 

 every 4,300 of the free born, adult male popu- 

 lation. In the two centuries from 500-300 

 B.C. this small, barren country with an area 



