26 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 
Sense, owe their origin biologically to recombinations of characters 
which have existed from time immemorial in separate races. No doubt 
the great men which arise in human societies from time to time may 
be explained in the same manner, so far as they are regarded as biolog- 
ical phenomena. 
This possibility of producing what is virtually new by recombination 
must now be considered. Through the work done by various breeders, 
beginning with Mendel, we know much about the manner of such com- 
binations, and how to get rid of undesirable units. Where the cases 
have been simple almost ideal success has been attained: and in com- 
plicated cases it has been possible to produce definite results by con- 
centrating attention on special characters. Thus Bateson in his presi- 
dential address before the zoological section of the British Association 
in 1904, said: 
There are others who look to the science of heredity with a loftier aspira- 
tion: who ask, can any of this be used to help those who come after us to be 
better than we are—healthier, wiser or more worthy? The answer depends on 
the meaning of the question. On the one hand, it is certain that a competent 
breeder, endowed with full powers, by the aid even of our present knowledge, 
could in a few generations breed out several of the morbid diatheses. As we have 
got rid of rabies and pleuro-pneumonia, so we could exterminate the simpler 
vices. Voltaire’s cry, “Erraser Vinfame,’ might well replace Archbishop 
Parker’s “ Table of Forbidden Degrees,” which is all the instruction Parliament 
has so far provided. Similarly, a race may conceivably be bred true to some 
physical and intellectual characters considered good. 
We come then to the conclusion that in the case of man, as with 
domesticated animals and cultivated plants, it is possible to get rid of 
many undesirable qualities, to combine others which are desirable, and 
to maintain indefinitely that which has been once secured. Where 
there is bisexual inheritance we can not have strictly pure lnes, to be 
sure, but it is possible to have lines which are pure within practical 
limits. That is to say, we may have a race of people none of whom 
have a certain hereditary taint, all of whom have a certain hereditary 
quality. Beyond this, we would not go, were it possible; for no one 
would wish to sacrifice the interesting diversity of human types which 
makes life chiefly worth while. In our national aspirations, we have 
recognized the ideal of a moderate unity of type; thus all Englishmen 
will agree that a true, full-blooded countryman of theirs should possess 
certain attributes, and will admit that those who fail in this are not 
strictly of the elect. All Frenchmen, typically, should have a certain 
vivacity not found among the Englishmen, and so on throughout the 
series. 
Thus the ideal of a relatively pure race of high quality is by no 
means a new one; but what is new is the practical knowledge of how 
this may be brought about, with the certain expectation of much more 
