enough to collect the known facts; new facts must be forthcoming. We
cannot, perhaps, undertake definite experiments upon human evolution,
but we can and must take advantage of the wealth of experiment which
Nature is carrying out around us and before our eyes could we but
learn to read her results. We need to know more about the process of
differential fertility, of human variability, of the effects of
Nurture as well as of the conditions of Nature.
We do know pretty well the effects, upon the individual, of training,
education, good and ill housing conditions and conditions of labor, of
disease, alcoholism, underfeeding. We need now to know, not to guess
at, the effects of these things upon the race, upon human stock. A
mere beginning has been made here in the way of a scientific treatment
of this question, although many persons have their minds already made
up, firmly and fully, as to the "effects of the environment." But all
that we have guessed here may be wrong.
The discussion of this subject is filled with pitfalls. The common
form of the query as to which is of the greater importance, "heredity
or environment," in determining individual characteristics betrays a
completely erroneous view of what heredity is, and of the organism's
relation to its environment. The living organism reacts to its
environment at every stage of its existence, whether as an egg, an
embryo, or an adult. In this reaction both factors are essential, the
environment as essential as the organism. The result of this continued
reaction is the development on the part of the organism of certain
physiological processes and structural conditions or characteristics.
The nature of these resulting states, depending upon the two
factors--organism and environment--can be changed by altering either
factor. In general, organisms develop under pretty much the same
conditions as their parents and general ancestry did, and their
germinal substances are directly continuous, and therefore very
similar. Consequently, primary organic structure and environing
conditions of development being alike through successive generations,
the results of their interaction are alike. This alikeness is
heredity--the fact of similarity between parent and offspring. The
usually indefinite question as to the effect of the environment
ordinarily has a real meaning however, and this is, or should be,
whether the alteration of particular elements of the environment, the
presence of special, unusual factors which cannot be said to be
"normally" present--whether these produce any effect upon the organism
which is truly heritable.
This is in reality the old question of the "inheritance of acquired
characteristics," or, in a word, of modifications--a question which
has been debated heatedly and at length. And as in many similar
instances the number of essays and the length and heat of the debate
have been inversely as the number and clearness of the pertinent
facts. The large majority of biologists have long felt that the great
bulk of the evidence was on one side, namely, that acquired traits
were not heritable. At the same time they have recognized the
difficulty of explaining certain apparently demonstrated contradictory
facts. Some recent experimental work has largely cleared away the
theoretical difficulties in this field, and the present status of the
old and really fundamental question may be stated as follows: External
conditions--climate, temperature, moisture, nutritional conditions,
results of unusual activity, and the like--incidences of the
environment, undoubtedly produce effects upon the structure and
behavior of the organism, but these effects must be clearly grouped
into two distinct classes.
In the first place the effect of "external" conditions may be to bring
about a reaction between the _bodily_ parts affected and the
environing conditions. Here the body alone is modified and not the
germinal substance for the next generation within this body. Such
responses to environing conditions do not affect nor involve the
structure of the germ, and are therefore unrepresented in that series
of reactions that result in the production of an individual of the
next generation. In this class are found most of the instances of
"functional modification" or acquired characteristics. In this
category belong most of the stock illustrations--from the blacksmith's
arm and the pianist's fingers, to the giraffe's neck and the fox's
cunning. Here also belong the results of training and education; we
can train and educate brain cells but not germ cells.
It is characteristic of most of these bodily reactions to external
conditions that they are adaptive; that is, when a body reacts to
such a condition it does so by undergoing a change which makes the
organism better fitted to the new condition--better able to exist. The
increased keenness of vision, the strengthened muscle, the thickened
fur--all such changes meet new or unusual demands in such a way that
the organism has better chances of survival than it would have had
unmodified.
But in the second place there are certain environmental circumstances
which do affect the structure of the germinal substance within the
body of an organism. An unusually high temperature acting at a certain
period in the life-history may bring about a change in the color of
insects which is heritable--i. e., racial; but such a change results
from the action of temperature upon the germ directly and not alone
upon the body, which then itself affects the germ. It is essential to
recognize that in all such cases it is not the structural change in
the body that affects the germ, but it is the external condition
itself that affects the germ directly. This is not the half of a hair;
it is an extremely important and significant difference. The effects
of this kind of action are not visible until the generation following
that acted upon. They become expressed in the bodies of the organisms
developed from the affected germs.
It is characteristic of such changes as these that they may not,
usually do not, have an adaptive relation to the condition bringing
about the change. There is no correspondence between the bodily and
the germinal modifications resulting from the action of the same
condition. Furthermore, there seems to be no adaptive relation between
the general character of the germinal disturbance and the
environmental disturbance. Rarely some of the organismal characters
resulting from such germinal modification may be in the direction of
greater adaptedness; usually they are neutral or in the direction of
utter unfitness.
But such effects are heritable, whatever their nature with respect to
adaptedness, and it becomes therefore very important to find out what
are the conditions that may thus disturb the normal structure of the
germ. Little more than a beginning has been made here and practically
nothing can be said definitely with reference to the human organism
in this respect. Enough is known, however, to make it clear that it is
only rarely indeed that external conditions can thus affect the
germinal structure. In most cases the effects of the incidence of
environment are purely bodily. A most fruitful field for eugenic
investigation is open here.
One of the first problems to be attacked from this point of view is
that of the racial (i. e., heritable) effects of such poisons as
alcohol. It is frequently said, for instance, that some of the effects
of alcoholism are the weakened, epileptic, or feeble-minded conditions
of the offspring, who are also particularly liable to disease and
infection. It can hardly be said that this is as yet thoroughly
demonstrated. On account of the importance of this question we might
call specific attention to some recent investigations of the problem
of the racial influence of alcohol. The effects of alcohol upon the
individual are fairly well known, although still a matter for debate
in some quarters. But this is not as important eugenically as the
possible effect upon the offspring of the use and abuse of alcohol by
the parents. An investigation has been carried on recently through
the Galton Laboratory for National Eugenics directed toward
ascertaining the precise relation between alcoholism in parents and
the height, weight, general health, and intelligence of their
children. It was found to be perfectly true that alcoholism and
tuberculosis show a high degree of association; but considering the
nondrinking members of the same community just the same high frequency
of tuberculosis was found. And the presence of alcoholism among
parents was found to be practically without effect upon the height and
weight of their offspring. "These results are certainly startling and
rather upset one's preconceived ideas, but it is perhaps a consolation
that to the obvious and visible miseries of the children arising from
drink, lowered intelligence and physique are not added."
The difficulties surrounding investigation and the interpretation of
the results of investigation in this particular field are evidenced by
the fact that these results have been adversely criticised, on the one
hand, because "alcoholism" was taken to mean the continued moderate
use of alcohol, and on the other because "alcoholism" was taken to
mean only the occasional excessive abuse of alcohol. Much of the
confusion surrounding the discussion of the racial effects of alcohol
grows out of the underlying confusion of statistical and individual
statements. It may be left open, then, whether this result from the
Galton Laboratory is clearly demonstrated and whether the basis of
investigation was sufficiently broad to make the facts of general
applicability.
The frequent association between alcoholism and certain forms of
insanity is sometimes taken as evidence of a racial effect. Here again
we find the question really left open when we appeal to facts taken in
large numbers. In a few cases it seems to have been demonstrated that
saturation of the bodily tissues with alcohol affects directly the
structure of the germ cells formed at that time, and that this effect
is seen in physical and mental disturbances of the offspring derived
from such germ cells, and thus becomes hereditary or racial. But these
results, like those mentioned above, need confirmation. The impairment
of the child _in utero_ through maternal overindulgence in alcohol
would not necessarily denote any corresponding germinal (i. e.,
racial) effect.
It is often the case that alcoholic excess, like other forms of
excess, may be an indication of a lack of complete mental balance or
sanity, sure to have become expressed in some form. The lack of
balance in the offspring of such persons is a simple case of heredity
and not the result of the parental use of alcohol. The alcoholism of
the parent was a result, an indication, and not a cause. There may be
instances of the direct action of external conditions upon the germ,
and in a very true sense the body is a part of the external
environment of the germ, but to say that such an action has been
demonstrated for alcohol is premature. It should be easily possible to
get real evidence upon this and similar questions. But at present it
is safest to leave the whole question of the racial effects of alcohol
entirely open pending more and better evidence.
To summarize, then, we may say that the evidence for an inherited
effect of the misuse of alcohol is not as clear as one might wish; it
may be true. There is the greatest need for the careful scientific
investigation of this and allied problems. Much of the evidence here
is not of the kind that can be used to prove things--it consists
largely of the demonstration of the fact of association rather than of
causation. In order to show that a changed environment has produced a
change in the innate characters of the organisms affected it must be
demonstrated that the organismal change continues to be inherited
after the environment has again become what it was originally, and as
yet this has not been done. Indeed when tested in this way it is found
that a permanently heritable alteration can thus be produced only
rarely and by environmental changes of the most profound character.
Research in another direction is greatly needed. We should examine and
reexamine current as well as proposed social practices and reforms
from the racial point of view. We should know before going much
farther whether the extensive social improvements that are annually
effected are to any considerable degree racially permanent. We should
investigate not only the racial effects of the unfavorable social
conditions themselves, but also the racial effects of the measures
directed toward the relief of such conditions. It is conceivable that
measures of relief may be practically without permanent effect or even
racially detrimental. It would seem that the social worker and
philanthropist should welcome any biologically fundamental truths
touching these questions, and yet it is curiously true that there are
some such persons who seem to prefer not to know the whole truth here,
perhaps because they fear it may disclose the unwelcome fact that much
of their effort has resulted in amelioration rather than in
correction. It should be remembered that simple relief is well worth
while, even though often without resulting racial benefit. When it is
not actually detrimental racially, relief is an economic, social, and
moral duty. The Eugenist, by disclosing the fact that racial effects
can actually be accomplished, enlarges rather than diminishes the
opportunities for relief and his knowledge should be welcomed and use
made of it.
Heretofore the social point of view has been practically the only
point of view in much of this work, and the result is that usually
following when action is based upon half-truth. David Starr Jordan
says: "Charity creates the misery she tries to relieve; she never
relieves half the misery she creates," and he goes on to say that
_unwise_ charity is responsible for half the pauperism of the world;
that it is the duty of charity to remove the _causes_ of weakness and
suffering and equally to see that weakness and suffering are not
needlessly perpetuated. In this connection the following quotation
from Elderton is apt: "... the influence of the parental environmental
factor on the welfare of children is ... at present and has been in
the past the chief direction of legislative and philanthropic attack
on social evils. Degeneracy of every form has been attributed to
poverty, bad housing, unhealthy trades, drinking, industrial
occupation of women, and other direct or indirect environmental
influences on offspring. If we could by education, by legislation, or
by social effort change the environmental conditions, would the race
at once rise to a markedly higher standard of physique and mentality?
Much, if not the whole battle for social reform, has been based on the
assumption that this question was obviously to be answered in the
affirmative. No direct investigation has really ever been made of the
intensity of the influence of environment on man. To modify the
obviously repellent was the immediate instinct of the more gently
nurtured and controlling social class. Was this direction of social
reform really capable of effecting any substantial change? Nay, by
lessening the selective death rate, may it not have contributed to
emphasizing the very evils it was intended to lessen? These are the
problems which occur to the eugenist and call for investigation and,
if possible, settlement.... It is conceivable that the relation
between children's physique, for example, and parental occupation is
an indirect result of the inheritance of physique and a correlation
between parents' physique and their occupation. In other words, what
we are attributing to environment may be a secondary influence of
heredity itself. A weakling may have no option but to follow an
unhealthy trade, a man is a tailor or shoemaker, because he has not
the physique for smith or navvy. His offspring may be physically
inferior because he is a weakling and not because he follows an
unhealthy trade. Clearly, to solve our problem, we must know if there
be any correlation between the same character in the parent as we are
observing in the child and the environment we are correlating with the
child's character. Unfortunately data enabling us to determine the
relationship of any mental or physical character of the parent with
the environment which is supposed to influence the child is rarely
forthcoming."
Just to suggest one further train of thought, we might point out that
several movements apparently of high social value have been attended
by a curious and largely unforeseen back action. Thus the enforcement
of certain forms of Employer's Liability laws has led to
discrimination against married persons by large employers of labor and
a premium thus put upon nonmarriage. The result of Child Labor
legislation has been in some cases an enormous rise in the death rate
of young children among the classes concerned, indicating that the
children receive less care, now that they have ceased to be a
prospective family asset and have become chiefly a burden for many
years. In other cases the result has been so serious a limitation in
the birth rate that communities are dying out and factories are
closing for want of sufficient help. Such problems are not only social
but economic and eugenic, and they cannot be seen squarely from any
single point of view. It is doubtless shocking to the cultured mind
that the chief reason for bringing children into the world should be
their economic value as contributors to the family income. But in
reality does this point of view differ fundamentally from that very
commonly taken of the value of a large family except in the nature of
the standard by which their value is measured? May there not be a
difference of opinion as to whether children are better or worse off
when brought up with some degree of care to be employed under humane
conditions of labor, than when left uncared for to die in large
proportions of disease and neglect?
Finally, studies in heredity, whether on man or on other animals or on
plants, are sure to be of value here because we know that the
fundamental processes of heredity are the same in all organisms. Above
all, the Eugenist needs to know more of Mendelian heredity in man.
The facts of heredity stated in the statistical form of averages and
coefficients do not affect the man in the street materially--he rather
enjoys taking chances. An extensive eugenic practice can be
established only when we can say definitely what the individual or
family inheritance will be in a given instance--not what it will be
with such and such a degree of probability, although that probability
be high. We may not be such a long way off from this ideal, which is
an essential for the inauguration of eugenic practice upon a large
scale. For the Eugenist this is the richest field for investigation
and one which is certain to yield large results.
The Eugenist's demand for more facts will doubtless become an
important factor in the progress of biological science. The practical
application of the knowledge of heredity in the production of
domesticated or cultivated varieties of animals and plants is becoming
annually more extensive; and with the recognition of the possibility
of the application of this knowledge to the control of the evolution
of man himself, will come a rapid increase in biological knowledge
and in the earnestness of the student of heredity. And at the same
time another result may be that the science of biology shall come to
be appraised publicly more nearly at its real value. The biological
worker knows that his science comes into contact with human life at
every point, that a knowledge of the fundamental principles of the
science of life cannot fail to enrich, enlighten, and ennoble the life
of every human being. But the community does not yet realize this, to
its own great loss. Is it not possible that the Eugenist, finding his
fundamentals in biology, by emphasizing the facts of the possibility
and the necessity of controlling human evolution, may be able to bring
to society a vital sense of the importance of this science with a
directness and a vividness which the bacteriologist and hygienist have
not been able thus far to realize? Is it even too much to hope that
the idea that the "humanities" include only the study of man's
comparatively recent past, may now more rapidly give place to a
broader conception which shall include not only the whole of man's
past, but the study of his future as well? Could any ideal be more
vitally, more profoundly human or more worthy of study and devotion,
than this of the production of a race of men, clean and sound in mind
and body? Be that as it may, the development of this bio-social field
can scarcely fail to stimulate strongly the treatment of all social
problems with a strictly scientific method. Nothing less than exact
methods, and results exactly stated, will satisfy the genuine and
really valuable social student of the near future. As one recent
writer has feelingly put it: "We have had essays enough."
Eugenic practice for the immediate future is the third part of our
program. Must we wait until more data are collected, more facts
uncovered, before we undertake any definite proposals for eugenic
procedure? Although this is the most difficult aspect of the subject,
largely through lack of a sufficiently broad fact-basis, yet we are
certainly in possession of enough information to make plain a few
necessary steps. Most of the concrete proposals directed toward the
reduction of the undesirables and the increase of the desirables have
been visionary, impractical, or too limited in their view-point.
Above all, they have been open to the objection that they have gone
too far in the direction of that zone which separates the two classes.
It should be said again that most of these proposals have been those
of the amateur enthusiast, not of the seriously scientific Eugenist;
they have grown out of that common habit of "getting far from the
facts and philosophizing about them."