CHAPTER II 



THE METHOD OF EUGENICS 



1. Unit Characters and their Combination 



When we look among our acquaintances we are struck by 

 their diversity in physical, mental, and moral traits. Some 

 of them have black hair, others brown, yellow, flaxen, or 

 red. The eyes may be either blue, green, or brown; the 

 hair straight or curly; noses long, short, narrow, broad, 

 straight, aquiline, or pug. They may be liable to colds or 

 resistant; with weak digestion or strong. The hearing may 

 be quick or dull, sight keen or poor, mathematical abiUty 

 great or small. The dispo^tion may be cheerful or mel- 

 ancholic; they may be selfish or altruistic, conscientious or 

 Uable to shirk. It is just the fact of diversity of character- 

 istics of people that gives the basis for the belief in the 

 practicability of improving the quaUties of the ''human 

 harvest." For these characteristics are inheritable, they 

 are independent of each other, and they may be combined 

 in any desirable mosaic. 



The method of inheritance of these characteristics is 

 not always so simple as might be anticipated. Extensive 

 studies of heredity have, of late years, led to a more precise 

 knowledge of the facts. The element of inheritance is not 

 the individual as a whole nor even, in many cases, the 

 traits as they are commonly recognized but, on the con- 

 trary, certain unit characters. What are, indeed, units in 

 inheritance and what are complexes it is not always easy 



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