Deaf-mutes, America Schuster Probably complete 6.1
Tuberculous stock Pearson Probably complete 5.7
Albinotic stock Pearson Probably complete 5.9
Insane stock Heron Probably complete 6.0
Edinburgh degenerates Eugenics Lab Incomplete 6.1
London mentally
defective Eugenics Lab Incomplete 7.0
Manchester mentally
defective Eugenics Lab Incomplete 6.3
Criminals Goring Completed 6.6
English middle class Pearson 15 years at least,
begun before 35 6.4
Family records--normals Pearson Completed 5.3
English intellectual
class Pearson Completed 4.7
Working class N.S.W. Powys Completed 5.3
Danish professional
class Westergaard 15 years at least 5.2
Danish working class Westergaard 25 years at least 5.3
Edinburgh normal
artisan Eugenics Lab Incomplete 5.9
London normal artisan Eugenics Lab Incomplete 5.1
American graduates Harvard Completed 2.0
English intellectuals Webb Said to be complete 1.5
All childless marriages are excluded except in the last two
cases. Inclusion of such marriages usually reduces the
average by 0.5 to 1.0 child.
The table given shows clearly what stocks are maintaining, what
increasing, and what diminishing their numbers.
This subject has been investigated recently in a rather extensive way
by David Heron, for the London population. Heron concentrated his
attention upon the relation of fertility in man to social status. He
used as indices to social status such marks as the relative number of
professional men in a community, or the relative number of servants
employed, or of lowest type of male laborers, or of pawnbrokers; also
the amount of child employment pauperism, overcrowding in the home,
tuberculosis, and pauper lunacy. Twenty-seven metropolitan boroughs of
London were canvassed on these bases, which are certainly significant,
though not infallible, indices to the character of a community. His
results are shown in the briefest possible form in Table III.
TABLE III
_Correlation of the Birth Rate with Social and Physical Characters
of London Population._ (From Heron.)
CORRELATION
COEFFICIENT.
With number of males engaged in professions -.78
With female domestics per 100 females -.80
With female domestics per 100 families -.76
With general laborers per 1,000 males +.52
With pawnbrokers and general dealers per 1,000 males +.62
With children employed, ages 10 to 14 +.66
With persons living more than two in a room +.70
With infants under one year dying per 1,000 births +.50
With deaths from pulmonary tuberculosis per 100,000
inhabitants +.59
With total number of paupers per 1,000 inhabitants +.20
With number of lunatic paupers per 1,000 inhabitants +.34
This table gives the results of the calculation of coefficients of
correlation between the birth rates and the conditions enumerated. We
may just recall that this coefficient is a measure of the regularity
with which the changes in two varying conditions or phenomena are
associated: and further that a coefficient of 1.0 indicates perfectly
regular association, 0.75 a very high degree of regularity. The first
line of the table then, for example, means that when these
twenty-seven districts were sorted out, first, with reference to the
number of professional men dwelling in them, and then with reference
to their respective birth rates, there was found a very high degree of
regularity (coefficient of correlation = -.78) in the association of
these two conditions--birth rate and number of professional men. Here
is a very close relation, _but_, the sign of the coefficient is
_negative_. The significance of this negative sign is that among the
communities studied those where the number of professional men is the
larger show always, at the same time, the lower birth rates. Coming to
the second line of the table, it seems fair to assume that the number
of servants employed in a district in proportion to the total number
of residents or families there, gives a fairly though not wholly
satisfactory indication of the social character of the community.
Measurement of the actual relation between the proportional number of
servants employed in a community and the birth rate in that community,
gave practically the same result as in the case of the number of
professional men. The more servants employed in a district the lower
its birth rate. Two methods of measuring this relation gave
essentially the same result; comparison of the birth rate with the
ratio of domestics, first to the number of families, second to the
number of females, gave -.76 and -.80 respectively--very high
coefficients and both negative.
But the sign changes and becomes positive when we come to other
comparisons. When we count the relative number of pawnbrokers and
general dealers, of "general laborers" (that is, men without a trade
and without regularity of occupation and employment), of employed
children between the ages of ten and fourteen, of persons living more
than two in a room, when we consider the infant death rate, the death
rate from pulmonary tuberculosis, and the relative number of
paupers,--then we find the signs of the coefficients are all positive,
and on the average the coefficients are more than 0.50--a moderate to
high degree of regularity of the relation. The districts characterized
by the larger numbers of such individuals or by higher death rates of
these kinds, are at the same time the districts where the birth rates
are the higher.
In a word, then, Heron found that the greater the number of
professional men, or of servants employed in a community, the lower
the birth rate--a very high degree of negative correlation. On the
other hand, the more pawnbrokers, child laborers, pauper lunatics,
the more overcrowding and tuberculosis, the higher the birth rate--a
high degree of positive correlation. Little doubt here as to which
elements of the city are making the greater contributions to the next
generation. There may be some doubt, however, so let us consider two
possible qualifications of these results. First, is not the death rate
also higher among these least desirable classes? Yes, it is. Is it not
enough higher to compensate for the difference in the birth rates, so
that after all the least desirable classes are not more than replacing
themselves? No, it is not. After calculating the effect of the
differential death rate among these different social groups it still
remains true that the _net_ fertility of the undesirables is greater
than the _net_ fertility of the desirables: the worst classes are in
reality more than replacing themselves numerically in such
communities; the most valuable classes are not even replacing
themselves. Second, is not this the same condition that has always
existed in these districts? Why any cause for supposing that this is
going to bring new results to this society? Has not such a condition
always been present and always been compensated for somehow?
Fortunately, Heron is able to compare with these data of 1901 similar
data for 1851, and is able to show that every one of these relations
has changed in sign since that date--in fifty years. The significance
of this change in sign is probably clear. It means here that in London
sixty years ago there was a high degree of regularity in the relation
such that the more professional men and well-to-do families the
community contained, the higher the birth rate; that ten years ago
this had all become changed so that the more of these desirable
families found in a district the lower is the birth rate. It means
that sixty years ago the relation was such that the more undesirables
numbered in a district, the lower its birth rate; ten years ago the
more undesirables, the higher the birth rate, and the coefficients of
1901 are unusually high, indicating great closeness and regularity in
this relation. Heron is further able to show that as regards number of
servants employed, professional men, general laborers, and
pawnbrokers in a district, the intensity of the relationship has
_doubled_, besides changing in sign, in the period observed. It is not
necessary to review the history of this change nor to discuss the
causes involved, but it is necessary to take into account for the
immediate future the fact of the change.
Sidney Webb has recently published an account of the birth-rate
investigations undertaken by the Fabian Society with a view to
determine the causes leading to the rapidly falling birth rate in
England. During the decade previous to 1901 the number of children in
London actually diminished by about 5,000, while the total population
increased by about 300,000. As far as they bear upon this phase of the
subject his results fully confirm these we have been considering. The
falling off is chiefly in the upper and middle classes, in the classes
of thrift and independence, and it has occurred chiefly during the
last fifty years. Webb cannot find that this is due to any physical
deterioration in these classes; it is due to a conscious and
deliberate limitation of the size of the family for what are thought
prudential and economic reasons.
An actual reduction in the number of children may not be an unmixed
evil. A falling birth rate may be a good sign. This is partly a
question for the political economist. "Suicide" may be a socially
fortunate end for some strains. But when, in either a rising or a
falling birth rate, we find a differential or selective relation, then
the subject is eugenic. If the higher birth rate is among the socially
valuable elements of each different class the Eugenist can only
approve; to bring about such a relation is one of his aims. What we
really find, however, is the undesirable elements increasing with the
greatest rapidity, the better elements not even holding their own.
One further aspect of the result of the smaller family remains to be
considered. Are the various members of a single family approximately
similar in their characteristics or are the earlier born more or less
likely to be particularly gifted or particularly liable to disease or
abnormal condition? Or is there no rule at all in this matter? There
is much evidence that the incidence of pathological defect falls
heaviest upon the earlier members of a family. Consider, for example,
the presence of tuberculosis. We should ask, in families of two or
more, are the tubercular members, if any, as likely to be the second
born or third or tenth as to be the first born? The data are tabulated
in Fig. 11, _A_. The distribution of family sizes being what it is in
the number of families investigated and tabulated, we should expect
that there would be about 65 tubercular first born, 60 tubercular
second born, and so forth, on the basis of its average frequency in
the whole community, provided the chances are equal that any member of
the family should be affected with tuberculosis. What we actually
find, however, is that 112 first born are affected, about 80 second
born, and after that no relation between order of birth and
susceptibility to tuberculosis. That is, susceptibility to
tuberculosis is double the normal among first born children. The same
thing is true for gross mental defect. Fig. 11, _B_, shows that the
ratio of observed to expected insane first born children is about 4 to
3. Such a relation has long been known to criminologists and
frequently commented upon. Fig. 11, _C_, gives a definite expression
to the facts here. Whereas, in the number of families observed about
56 criminal first born were to be expected, the number actually found
is about 120; for the second born the corresponding numbers are about
54 and 78, and after that no marked relation is found between order of
birth and criminality. For albinism (Fig. 11, _D_) the expected and
observed numbers among first born are about 185 and 265, second born
165 and 190, and thereafter no definite relation. It remains to be
seen whether a similar relation holds for the unusually able and
valuable members of a family; something has been said on both sides
here, but there are available at present no data sufficiently exact to
be worthy of consideration.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.--Diagrams showing the relation
between order of birth and incidence of pathological defect.
(From Pearson).]
We have here a result that has very important bearings upon the value
to the race of the large family and of the danger of the small family.
The small family of one, two, or three children contributes on the
average much more than its share of pathological and defective
persons. No matter just now what the causes are, they seem to be more
or less beyond remedy. The result for the future, however, must be
reckoned with. This relation has important bearings upon the custom of
primogeniture as well as upon the eugenic values of the large family.
In conclusion let us give a few sentences only slightly modified from
Pearson's "Grammar of Science." The subject of differential fertility
is not only vitally important for the theory of evolution, but it is
crucial for the stability of civilized societies. If the type of
maximum fertility is not identical with the type fittest to survive in
a given environment, then only intensive selection can keep the
community stable. If natural selection be suspended there results a
progressive change; the most fertile, whoever they are, tend to
multiply at an increasing rate. In our modern societies natural
selection has been to some extent suspended; what test have we then of
the identity of the most fertile and the most fit? It wants but very
few generations to carry the type from the fit to the unfit. The
aristocracy of the intellectual and artizan classes are not equally
fertile with the mediocre and least valuable portions of those
classes and of society as a whole. Hence if the professional and
intellectual classes are to be maintained in due proportions they must
be recruited from below. This is much more serious than would appear
at first sight. The upper middle class is the backbone of a nation,
supplying its thinkers, leaders, and organizers. This class is not a
mushroom growth, but the result of a long process of selecting the
abler and fitter members of society. The middle classes produce
relatively to the working classes a vastly greater proportion of
ability; _it is not want of education, it is the want of stock which
is at the basis of this difference_. A healthy society would have its
maximum of fertility in this class and recruit the artizan class from
the middle class rather than _vice versa_. But what do we actually
find? A growing decrease in the birth rate of the middle and upper
classes; a strong movement for restraint of fertility, and limitation
of the family, touching only the intellectual classes and the
aristocracy of the hand workers! Restraint and limitation may be most
social and at the same time most eugenic if they begin in the first
place to check the fertility of the unfit; but if they start at the
wrong end of society they are worse than useless, they are nationally
disastrous in their effects. The dearth of ability at a time of crisis
is the worst ill that can happen to a people. Sitting quietly at home,
a nation may degenerate and collapse, simply because it has given full
play to selective reproduction and not bred from its best. From the
standpoint of the patriot, no less than from that of the evolutionist
and Eugenist, differential fertility is momentous; we must
unreservedly condemn all movements for restraint of fertility which do
not discriminate between the fertility of the physically and mentally
fit and that of the unfit. Our social instincts have reduced to a
minimum the natural elimination of the socially dangerous elements;
they must now lead us consciously to provide against the worst effects
of differential fertility--a survival of the most fertile, when the
most fertile are not the socially fittest.
The subject before us illustrates the direct bearing of science upon
moral conduct and upon statecraft. The scientific study of man is not
merely a passive intellectual viewing of nature. It teaches us the art
of living, of building up stable and dominant nations, and it is of no
greater importance for the scientist in his laboratory, than for the
statesman in council and the philanthropist in society.
III
HUMAN HEREDITY AND THE EUGENIC PROGRAM
III
HUMAN HEREDITY AND THE EUGENIC PROGRAM
"A breed whose proof is in time and deeds;
What we are, we are--nativity is answer enough to objections."
A few years ago official recognition was taken of the disturbing fact
that the annual wheat yield of Great Britain was grossly deficient in
both quantity and quality. In 1900 The National Association of British
and Irish Millers, with almost unprecedented sagacity, raised a fund
to provide for a series of experiments under the direction of a
competent biologist, in order to discover if possible some means of
restoring the former yield and quality of the native wheats. The story
of the result reads like a romance. The experimenter--Prof. R. H.
Biffen--collected many different varieties of wheat, native and
foreign, each of which had some desirable qualities, and studied their
mode of inheritance. Now, after only a few years of experimentation a
wheat has been produced and is being grown upon a large scale in
which have been united this desirable character of one variety, that
character of another. From each variety has been taken some valuable
trait, and these have all been combined into one variety possessing
the characteristics of a short full head, beardlessness, high gluten
content, immunity to the devastating rust, a strong supporting straw,
and a high yield per acre. A wheat made to order and fulfilling the
"details and specifications" of the growers.
Manitoba and British Columbia opened up whole new lands of the finest
wheat-growing capacity, but the season there is too short for the
ripening of what were the finest varieties. This new specification was
promptly met and the early ripening quality of some inferior variety
was transferred to the varieties showing other highly desirable
qualities, and these countries are now producing enormous quantities
of the finest wheat in the world.
All of this has been made possible by the discovery, mentioned in the
preceding chapter, that many characteristics of organisms are units
and behave as such in heredity; they can be added to races or
subtracted from them almost at will. Pure varieties breeding true can
be established permanently by taking into account the Mendelian laws
of heredity. Similar results have been accomplished in many other
plants and in many animals. A cotton has been produced which combines
early growth, by which it escapes the ravages of the boll weevil, with
the long fiber of the finest Sea Island varieties. Corn of almost any
desired percentage of sugar or starch, within limits, can be produced
to order in a few seasons. The hornless character of certain varieties
of cattle can be transferred to any chosen breed. Sheep have been
produced combining the excellent mutton qualities of one breed with
the hornlessness of another, and with the fine wool qualities of still
a third. And so on from canary birds to draft horses. New races can be
built up to meet almost any demand, with almost any desired
combination of known characters, and these races remain stable.
Possibilities in this direction seem to be limited only by our present
and rapidly lessening ignorance of the facts of Mendelian heredity in
organisms--facts to be had for the looking.
What is man that we should not be mindful of him? Why should we
utilize all this new knowledge, all these immense possibilities of
control and of creation, only for our pigs and cabbages? In this era
of conservation should not our profoundest concern be the conservation
of human protoplasm? "The State has no material resources at all
comparable with its citizens, and no hope of perpetuity except in the
intelligence and integrity of its people." As Saleeby puts it: "There
is no wealth but life; and if the inherent quality of life fails,
neither battle-ships, nor libraries, nor symphonies, nor Free Trade,
nor Tariff Reform, nor anything else will save a nation."
In this work of the creation and establishment of new and valuable
varieties, two essential biological facts are made use of. The raw
materials are furnished by variation--by the fact that there are
individual and racial differences. The means of accomplishing results
are furnished by heredity--the fact that offspring resemble the
parents, not only in generalities, but even in particulars, and
according to certain definite formulas.
And, further, in the formation and establishment of a new race of
plant or animal a conscious and ideal process is involved. The will of
some organism guides the process, carefully doing away with hit and
miss methods, and proceeding as directly as may be possible to an end
_desired_. The facts of variation and heredity are sufficiently
demonstrated for all organisms other than man; are they true of man
also? Have we available the possibilities for the improvement of the
human breed? If not, Eugenics is merely an interesting speculation. We
have mentioned already the facts of variation in man; we undoubtedly
do have the raw materials. What about heredity, and what about the
directive agency? Let us look now at some of the facts of human
heredity and consider some of the possibilities in the way of
directive agencies. Is it going to be possible to breed a stable human
race permanently with or without definite characteristics which now
appear only in certain groups, or sporadically as variations?
At the outset we should say that the knowledge of human heredity is as
yet largely of the statistical sort. We know how a great many
characters are inherited, on the average. The subject of Mendelian
heredity is so new that there has been hardly time to investigate more
than a few human characteristics from this point of view. Certain
conditions add to the difficulties here. First, many, probably most,
of the more important human traits are complexes, not units, and it is
a long and difficult process to analyze them into their units, with
which alone Mendelism deals. Second, in human society we cannot carry
on definite experiments under controlled conditions, directed toward
the solution of some concrete problem in heredity. It is true that
Nature herself is making such experiments constantly, but at random,
and rarely under ideal conditions of what the experimenter calls
control or check. We have first to seek and find them out, and when
they are found we often discover that there are lacking many of the
facts essential to a complete or satisfactory analysis of the facts
displayed. The comparatively small size of the human family sometimes
makes it difficult to get data sufficiently extensive to be really
significant. And the long period that elapses between successive human
generations adds to the difficulty of getting precise information, for
in dealing with the heredity of some traits comparisons must be made
with individuals of the same ages, and the period of observation of a
single observer seldom exceeds the duration of a single generation.
Yet in spite of all these difficulties we have a fairly broad and
exact knowledge of human heredity in respect to some characteristics.
Human heredity involves both physical and psychical characters--both
the body and the mind are concerned. Among other animals little if
anything is known regarding psychic inheritance, but the physical
traits of men are inherited in just the same ways and to the same
degrees as in animals. This degree or intensity of inheritance may be
expressed in coefficients of heredity between the groups of relatives
being compared. To mention a few examples of coefficients for physical
traits we have the following:
CHARACTER OBSERVED PARENTAL FRATERNAL
COEFFICIENT COEFFICIENT
Stature .49-.51 } .51-.55 }
Span .45 } .55 }
Fore Arm .42 } .47 .49 } .53
Eye Color .55 } .52 }
Hair Color .57 - Average
Hair Curliness .52
Head Measurements-three .55 - "
Cephalic Index (Ratio between breadth and
length of cranium) .49