CHAPTER VI 



GENETICS AND ETHICS* 



Modern studies of development are pro- 

 foundly changing the opinions of men with re- 

 spect to human personality. Observation of 

 the relentless laws of heredity, of the inevitable 

 influences for good or bad of environmental 

 conditions over which the individual has no 

 control, undoubtedly tends to produce a sense 

 of helplessness and hopelessness. What light 

 is thrown upon the great problems of freedom 

 and determinism, of responsibility and irre- 

 sponsibility, of duty and necessity by modern 

 studies of development? Such questions can- 

 not be dealt with quantitatively and experi- 

 mentally, and they lie outside the field of exact 

 science, but they are involved in all inquiries 

 which have to do with rational and social be- 



* A portion of this chapter was given as the presidential ad- 

 dress before the American Society of Naturalists in January, 

 1913, and was published in Science under the title "Heredity 

 and Responsibility." 



