430 HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 



The whole development of modern society 

 is in the direction of racial solidarity and away 

 from hereditary classes. Government, educa- 

 tion and religion; socialism, syndicalism, an- 

 archism all reflect the movement for individual 

 liberty, fraternity and equality. The modern 

 ideal individual is not the highly specialized 

 unit in the social organism, as in the case of 

 social insects, but rather the most general all- 

 round type of individual, the man who can 

 when conditions demand combine within him- 

 self the functions of the laborer, business man, 

 soldier and scholar. For such a generalized 

 type the methods of inbreeding or close breed- 

 ing used by the breeder of thoroughbreds are 

 wholly inappropriate. On the other hand 

 such a generalized type must include the best 

 qualities of many types and races and Men- 

 delian inheritance shows how it is possible to 

 sort out the best qualities from the worst. 



Nowadays one hears a lot of high sounding 

 talk about "human thoroughbreds," which 

 usually means that those who use this phrase 

 desire to see certain narrow and exclusive so- 

 cial classes perpetuated by close inbreeding; it 



