[Transcriber’s Note: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and
bold text by =equal signs=.]
DARWINISM AND RACE PROGRESS
DARWINISM
AND
RACE PROGRESS
BY
JOHN BERRY HAYCRAFT
M.D., D.Sc., F.R.S.E.
_Professor of Physiology, University College, Cardiff_
[Illustration: Publisher’s logo]
SECOND EDITION
LONDON
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LTD.
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1900
FIRST EDITION, _January, 1895_; REPRINTED (WITH A FEW ALTERATIONS),
_April, 1900_.
To
M. W. H. AND L. S. H.
PREFACE
In 1890 I gave a lecture to the Edinburgh Health Society, which
appeared as No. 2 of their Eleventh Series. Its title is “The
Importance of Ideals of Health, Beauty, etc., in Race Progress.”
Much the same thesis considerably expanded was given by me in the
form of three Milroy Lectures to the Royal College of Physicians
of London in March, 1894, and appeared at the time almost verbatim
in the _Lancet_.
The present volume contains these lectures somewhat arranged to
suit a less technically instructed audience. I am indebted to my
colleague, Professor Richards, for his kindness and care in revising
the proofs.
JOHN BERRY HAYCRAFT.
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, CARDIFF.
_18th October, 1894._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
PAGE
Muscle and Brain versus Political Organisation--The
Muscles and Brains of a Race are not bound to
decay--The Fall of Greek and Roman Political
Organisation--The Permanence of the Scandinavian
and Jewish Types--Possible Racial Degeneration in
Spain--Our Power to ensure our own Racial Progress--The
Knowledge we possess regarding the Laws of Racial
Change--Evolution--Modern Philanthropic Effort--Are
these conducive to Racial as well as to Individual
Well-being? 1–18
CHAPTER II.
THE STANDPOINT OF BIOLOGISTS.
Lamarck’s View on Heredity--Darwin’s Law of
Selection--Three Ideas involved in Selection--Selection
is a Fact, not a Theory--How much is explainable
by Selection?--Galton and Weismann--Are Acquired
Characters Transmitted?--Many Cases of Supposed
Transmission to be explained by Selection--Paucity
of Experimental Evidence of such Transmission--The
Reproductive and the Body Cells--Reproductive
Cells unaffected by Local Changes in the Body
Cells--Constitutional Change may, though it rarely
does, affect the Reproductive Cell--The Facts of
Evolutive Selection known to the Gardener and Breeder 19–43
CHAPTER III.
CAUSES AND SIGNS OF PHYSICAL DETERIORATION.
Modern Care for the Individual--Preventive
Medicine--Micro-organisms of Diseases and their
Extermination--The Reproductive Cells as a Rule
unaffected by them--Man has been selected by
the Action of the Microbes of Fever--Leprosy an
Exterminator of the Unhealthy--Germs of Phthisis
and Scrofula, our Racial Friends--If we stamp out
Infectious Diseases we perpetuate Poor Types--Births,
Deaths, and Marriages--Increase of Constitutional
Weakness--Death-rate for Advanced Years on the
Increase--Life Tables compared--Physical Degeneration
of the Race already indicated 44–68
CHAPTER IV.
INSANITY AND ALCOHOLISM.
Nerve Derangements, Insanity--The Importance of
preventing its Transmission--Marriages of Insane
Persons--Alcoholism a Habit, and Alcoholism a
Sign of Mental Instability--Drink is a Selective
Agency--Parents who drink from Habit may have
Debilitated Offspring--Preventive Measures--Drink
among Australian Convicts--Drink and Prevention
in America--Public Habit and Conscience the best
Preventive--The Power of the Community over the
Individual--The Necessity for replacing one Selective
Agency by another--How it is that the Production
of Children by Diseased Parents is tolerated--The
Necessity for producing Posterity out of our Best Types 69–89
CHAPTER V.
THE CRIMINALS, INCAPABLES, AND THOSE IN DISTRESS.
Crime is often an Acquired Habit--The Innate Criminal--The
Jukes Family--Intermarriage does not stamp out Criminal
Tendencies--Segregation of the Criminal an Ultimate
and Effectual Resort--Our Unfortunate Use of the Word
“Poor”--The Unfortunate, the Aged, the Incapables, and
the Vicious, are treated alike--Our Poor-law Regulations
are at Fault--The Idle and Vicious are Subjects for
the Criminal Law--The Poor in very Deed--Our Misguided
Attitude to these--The Incapables--Segregation
Ultimately Required for their Elimination--Incapables
to be Treated like Chronic Hospital Patients 90–110
CHAPTER VI.
COMPETITION.
Competition of Brain against Brain--Does the Race show
Increased Brain Capacity?--The Neolithic compared
with the Modern English Skulls--Abeyance of Brain
Development since Neolithic Times--Social Communities
do not permit of the Destruction of the Less
Intellectually Capable--Human Brain Power results
merely in Wealth Accumulation--Further Study of
Individual Competition--Those Competing are Handicapped
by Property--Property is not always acquired by the
Most Capable--Property Holders Less Capable than
Property Acquirers--The Poor Child is scratched against
the Rich Child--Modern Democratic Attempts to equalise
the Struggle--Those who Succeed are Not Always the Best 111–134
CHAPTER VII.
STERILITY OF THE CAPABLES.
Are the More Capable Relatively Sterile?--If so, we are
Breeding from our Incapables--Capable and Ambitious
Men Marry Late in Life--Many Unmarried Persons among
Upper Classes--Lower Class Marriages are the Most
Prolific--Their Infant Mortality is Greater--Artificial
Restriction of the Family--Fertility of French and
English Marriages Contrasted--Possible Swamping of the
Capables by the Incapables--Artificial Restrictions at
Present Most Disastrous 135–153
CHAPTER VIII.
OBLIGATION IN PARENTHOOD.
Are we prepared to carry out Selective Methods?--Rights
of the Individual, and Obligations to the
Community--Rights of Children and our Obligation to
them--Our Sense of Obligation is Developing--Social
Philosophers and Social Reformers--Segregation is
Not yet Practicable--Segregation no New Idea, and
ultimately a Necessary Practice--The Masses must be
Taught the Main Facts of Heredity and Evolution--The
End and Aim of Marriage--Our False Ideas regarding
Marriage--The Stream of Life 154–170
APPENDIX 171–180
DARWINISM AND RACE PROGRESS.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
_Muscle and Brain versus Political Organisation._
In the history of the world, nations have arisen from comparative
obscurity, have occupied positions of eminence and power, and have
then sunk into obscurity again. The Egyptians, who built their
pyramids and temples by the hands of the peoples they had conquered
in war and enslaved, were themselves conquered by Greeks; and these
conquerors, at first ignorant and savage, developed on the bases of
Eastern and Egyptian civilisation to a point never before reached.
But the Greeks in their turn were replaced by the younger Latin
race, who were also at first less civilised than the nations they
conquered. The Romans then developed and established an empire,
which men believed would be everlasting, but it, too, disappeared,
to give place to the Teutonic states of modern Europe. So strikingly
alike in their progression have been the histories of the peoples
of the past that it is quite a commonplace to hear the life of a
nation compared to that of a man as being a history of growth,
maturity and decay.
But the analogy is at most a very imperfect one, and, if content
with having made it, we leave the subject, we shall fail to note
the real facts of racial development as indicated in the pages of
history.
We may regard a nation from two points of view. First, we may look
at the muscle and brain power of the individuals who comprise it;
secondly, we may view it as a political organisation struggling
against the effects of climate, geographical position and other
rival organisations. These aspects are, of course, not mutually
exclusive, for the success of a nation in its political struggle
will depend in great measure upon its innate muscle and brain power;
but, on the other hand, a nation possessing admirable innate or
organic qualities may fail as a political organisation on account
of insurmountable obstacles placed in its way. When therefore we
read of the fall of the Roman Empire or the conquest of the Greek
states, we may be dealing with a question of actual racial and
organic deterioration comparable in some slight degree to senility;
or, on the other hand, we may have before us a question entirely
apart from this, that of the struggle of a people against obstacles
which have at last become insuperable. It will be necessary to
examine the facts of history in greater detail in order to find out
whether a race undergoes of necessity any organic change comparable
to growth, maturity and decay, exclusive of the changes which may
occur in the political organisation of the race and its fortuitous
position in respect to other organisations.
_The Muscles and Brains of a Race are not bound to decay._
We are dealing in the following pages with race rather than nation;
with muscle, blood and brain, rather than with political power and
influence; let us turn then to history in order to find out whether
or not organic deterioration must actually close the history of
every race, for if this is the case, our studies of racial change,
though of none the less intellectual interest, will have lost their
promise of practical utility. But, fortunately for the hopefulness
of our future work, we may anticipate by saying that history shows
us that the innate and organic is that which is most permanent and
lasting, and that change and catastrophe in a nation’s career have in
most cases been due to circumstances which we may term surrounding
or accidental. We shall see that races, unlike individuals, may
remain through the whole of their historic period without any
sign of organic decay, but that the organisations, on the part of
individuals of the race for purposes of trade or protection, may
be prone to dangers which sooner or later overtake them.
_The Fall of Greek and Roman Political Organisation._
A few illustrations will assist in making these points clear, and
we may begin with the fall of the Greek states under Macedonian
rule. It is here quite wrong to assume that the Greeks were at the
time of their first conquest a deteriorated race; individually
their conquerors were probably inferior to them; indeed, Alexander,
the Macedonian, is reported to have said in a burst of passion,
“The Greeks are demigods among Macedonian brutes.” The Greeks from
earliest times lived in small and independent states, jealously
competing with each other, and unwilling to join hands in the face
of a common danger. Their political organisation was from the first
of the weakest kind, and they were at all times in their history
liable to fall a prey to any aggressors who might have a stronger
and bigger political organisation than theirs. This want of cohesion
all but gave Greece to Persia; indeed during the Persian invasion
the independence of Greece was almost lost owing to the selfish
neutrality or active treachery of several Greek states. It is evident,
therefore, that the want of cohesion between a collection of small
states carried with it an element of danger, and that the chances
were that they would fall a prey sooner or later to foreign conquest.
In the case of the Roman Empire we are dealing with a political
organisation which has a place in the world’s history only second in
importance to that of the British Empire. In its growth, maturity
and fall, we do not trace the history of any particular race, for
it bound together nearly all the ancient world. It is said that
when Constantine removed the seat of government from the Tiber to
the Bosphorus, there were no Romans of pure blood in Rome itself,
and the inhabitants of Rome, who migrated with Constantine, and
took up their residence in Constantinople, soon lost even the Latin
tongue, and Greek became the language of the Eastern Roman Empire.
But this organisation of Greeks, Thracians, Persians, Egyptians and
Hellenized Asiatics lasted till Constantinople was taken by the
Turks in 1453, and here the climax was due to other causes than
those resulting from internal racial decay. Constantinople, the gate
of the East, was by its position the richest and the most powerful
city of the Eastern world, and while this was so, the organisation
of which it was the centre remained comparatively secure. When,
however, the merchants of Genoa and Venice opened up other routes
of trade, the Eastern Roman capital lost its importance by the
source of its power being diverted into other channels, and it was
conquered by a race that formerly it had held in check. With the
conquest of Constantinople the organisation of the Eastern Roman
Empire ceased to exist.
These two examples will serve to indicate how slow must we be to
assume that race deterioration has occurred merely because a state
or empire has fallen to the ground.
We shall seek in vain either in Greek or Roman history for any
answer to the question, “Must a race sooner or later organically
deteriorate?” During the Roman Empire so great a commingling of
blood occurred, and the modern Italian is so different--as far as
race is concerned--from an inhabitant of the peninsula at the time
of the Cæsars, that a comparison of their qualities would not give
an answer to the question we are seeking. The same objection would
be raised to a comparison between the modern Greek said to excel
even the Jew in barter (the chief outlet to his intelligence), and
a Greek of the time of the Macedonian conquest, because in the
interval race intermixture has been incessant. There are, however,
many examples of races which have existed through long periods of
time without mixing to any great extent with their neighbours. If
we can find amongst these a single example in which their physical
and mental powers have shown undiminished activity, this will
serve to establish the fact that racial decay is not a necessary
termination to the history of a people.
_The Permanence of the Scandinavian and Jewish Types._
Bearing this in mind, it is interesting to turn to the Scandinavian
races from which we spring. These races, when kept as far as
possible from interbreeding with other races, have shown wonderfully
persistent characteristics for a great many centuries. For their
powers of conquest and settlement, witness their early occupation of
the sea borders of Britain, Iceland and Normandy, their expeditions
to the Mediterranean, and even to North America, of which they were
the first discoverers: these are the precursors of our British
colonisation on a larger scale. The Lothians of Scotland are to-day
peopled by almost as pure a type of Scandinavian as you will find
in Bergen or Trondhjem, and they are perhaps the hardest headed,
as they are the longest limbed, of all the British. In Iceland, a
country peopled by those who fled from the rule of Harold, the first
king of Norway, because they were not used to kings, and would not
tolerate a novel form of government, we have a pure race isolated
for centuries, who to-day have the same characters as their Norse
forefathers, and who have developed and are developing as far as
their narrow limits will permit.
In even a more striking manner the Jewish race illustrates the same
point. Always of striking capacity, they suffered national extinction
at the hands of an enemy who had, so to speak, specialised in the
ways of warfare. So far from this national extinction indicating
any race enfeeblement, we have clear proof to the contrary, for to
the present day the Jews are more than fairly represented amongst
artists, musicians, scientists and men of affairs; and in our own
mercantile community, with the disadvantage of having two holidays
in the week against the Gentile’s one, the Jew more than holds his
own in the race for wealth.
_Possible Racial Degeneration in Spain._
We are not, however, bound to assume from these two examples that,
_bar_ political catastrophe, a race will always progress, or even
continue to possess its original characteristics.
In the case of Spain, a country which at one period of history
took a distinct lead amongst European nations, and explored and
conquered large areas in America and elsewhere, we find that to
this activity followed a period of lethargy and want of initiative.
But even here it would be wrong to assume a condition of national
senility, for old age in the individual is, in the millions of cases
under observation, an inevitable necessity, while the decline of
Spain was due to causes which might have been avoided, and the ill
effects of which might have been readily removed.
The Spaniards, unlike the English and the French, mix freely with
lower races, and in the Spanish colonies the race diluted its blood,
and thus influenced the home country. Not only was this so, but there
can be little doubt that much of that which possessed intelligence
and independence was taken out of the race during the days of the
Inquisition. When we remember that, from 1481–1808, no less than
340,000 persons were punished, of whom 32,000 were burnt alive,
and that thousands who represented the nation’s capacity and moral
backbone left the country, we need hardly wonder at the inevitable
result. If this be a true reading of history, we have here a case
of organic race deterioration, but it must be noted that it was
brought about by conditions which were under control, and, unlike
causes of true senility, were not universally operative.[1]
_Our Power to ensure our own Racial Progress._
We may conclude, I venture to think, from these examples in history,
that a race may continue to preserve its racial character for long
periods of time without deterioration, but it is suggested to us
that there are distinct dangers to be understood and avoided. If,
therefore, we ask ourselves, “Is our own preservation as a race
possible?” the answer comes to us that, guided by the historical
knowledge we possess, and with our better acquaintance with man
himself, and the laws of his growth and well-being, we have an
advantage over all who have gone before us, so that, if misadventure
should befall us, it will be most assuredly because of our own
indifference, and because we wilfully shut our eyes to the light
of truth.
It would be well once more to emphasise the difference between what
is meant by racial preservation and the preservation of political
organisation. It would be quite possible for our empire to crumble
away from us. It is a political organisation depending upon ties
of mutual advantage and sentiment, and likewise upon the tolerance
and weakness of other nations. But we may lose our colonies, and
be stripped of our prestige, and yet remain, man for man, as fine
individually as when we gained them; for bones, muscle and brains
are one thing, whilst the political union that binds us together
is another.
_The Knowledge we possess regarding the Laws of Racial Change._
A knowledge of the individual must be obtained before we can fitly
study the facts observable when individual succeeds individual,
making the generations to follow each other, and thereby building up
the history of a race of men. The facts of individual development,
both in the case of man and of the lower animals, have already
been minutely studied. We know much of the life-histories of many
species, and can say what conditions are favourable and what are
inimical to healthy and active individual existence. Much of this
information has been turned to practical uses, and preventive
medicine has arisen as a noble art, which, by its application,
permits of a successful war against disease and even against death
itself. We have also learned much of that longer history which
traces out the life of a species, generation after generation, and
noted those changes for the better or for the worse which occur in
the characteristics of groups of the individuals of those species
as they succeed each other. We have of late years accumulated in
government returns vast quantities of exact statistical information,
so that by comparing the facts obtained at one decade with those
of another we can observe many racial changes as they take place.
These more exact inquiries are, however, but slowly accumulating,
for man is a long-lived animal, and our impatience is great. We
must wait often for many generations, before small, though no doubt
important, changes are revealed by our methods of research. For this
reason much attention has been given to the race histories of the
lower animals, for in their case we may in a few years have many
generations under observation, and we can follow out their histories
in a comparatively short period of time. We are justified in making
use of the facts so obtained and of utilising them cautiously for
the interpretation of human race history, for we constantly and in
every day life assume points of similarity between man and the lower
animals. The blow or the spear thrust which injures us we know will
also injure them, and we infer that the contortions which follow
their application are symptoms of the pain that we, too, should
feel. We know,--and scientific inquiry has vastly extended our
knowledge,--that animals have all of them many points of structural
similarity, and that their life and race histories are in many
ways strikingly like our own. The chief muscles and nerves in man
may be recognised in the dog; the main lines of development are in
both cases the same, and the action of food and poison produces
results in which there are few points of difference. Of course,
when we infer from the facts observable in the study of animal
life that similar facts will be observable in human life as well,
we have to exercise due caution. It is here that the acumen of a
scientific mind is exercised to the fullest degree; we are liable
to error, and our results are perhaps tentative, and must be viewed
as such, but no one can doubt the suggestiveness and consequent
utility of these studies. Just as our knowledge of comparative
anatomy and physiology has been essential to a proper understanding
of human anatomy and physiology, so the few facts we at present
possess concerning human racial development receive significance
when examined by the side of a similar but far more extended array
of facts drawn from a study of animal racial development.
If, then, it be true that we have before us a small but increasing
mass of evidence regarding the laws of racial change, is not this
evidence worthy of our closest study? Is it not at least as worthy
as the study of the politics of the hour which absorbs so much of
our best energies; for what are the petty combinations of parties,
or even those temporary associations of individuals, which aim at
a common or national policy, by the side of the health and the
capacity of that race of which we are but passing representatives,
a race whose future we can make or mar by the course we now pursue?
_Evolution._
The belief in our power to modify not only our own but other races
is a partial expression of the great fact called “evolution,”
accepted now by all who have had time and opportunity to examine the
structures of living plants and animals placed side by side with
the remains of older forms preserved to us in the earth’s crust.
These structures testify without equivocation to that development
of type from type which has gradually led to the present condition
of plant and animal life, and which, in view of the changes still
observable, we are bound to conclude must still be progressing at
the present day.
_Modern Philanthropic Effort._
But over and above the fact that racial modifications can and do
occur, something is known about the method by means of which these
modifications are brought about. Knowledge on this point is so
definite, that we are justified in its acceptance, and must take
it into consideration in all discussions relating to our racial
well-being. Viewed from the side-light thus thrown upon our actions,
it will appear that modern civilisation, with all its care and
solicitude for the individual comforts of the race, will be, after
all, fatal to our successors, unless we adopt the wise precautions
which our present knowledge indicates as essential.
During the last few decades, mankind has learned from Nature many
of her secrets, and the knowledge thus obtained has been utilised
to free him from those hardships and even diseases which have
beset him. This knowledge, and the results of its application,
have increased like an avalanche, which adds to itself first by
pounds, then by hundredweights, and finally by hundreds of tons.
For instance, every climate now contributes to supply us with an
infinite variety of foods, to satisfy every necessity and gratify the
most dainty palate; and those who lack the power of digestion can
be supplied with food artificially digested in the laboratory. The
dangers of cold are now minimised by better drainage of the surface
soil, by admirable systems of heating, and by the substitution of
woollen for cotton underclothing. Excessive toil is prohibited by
laws, especially in the case of those occupations in which it is
most apt to prove inimical to personal well-being. Education, on
the lines most approved by educational departments, is forced by
fear of penalty upon the unwilling, and some would even follow the
example of certain American states, and make us sober by depriving
us of drink. Even disease is being attacked and driven across the
border; the microbe is going the way of the great auk and the dodo,
and the probability of human life is on the increase. While the
advantages of past civilisation fell to the few, our advantages
fall, nay, are forced, upon the many.
_Are these conducive to Racial as well as to Individual Well-being?_
But those scientific men who have given much attention to the
study of life in its widest manifestations in plants, in animals
and in man himself, have, with great show of unanimity, come to a
conclusion which appears to indicate that, although we may improve
an individual during his or her lifetime, both in physical capacity
or mental and moral power, this improvement is not transmitted in
appreciable degree to their offspring, who have therefore to begin
again in their lives just where the parents began in theirs. This
teaching strongly indicates that parents cannot pass on to their
offspring in any but a most limited degree the improvements they
themselves have made in their own physical or mental condition, in
the same way that they can bequeath to them the purses they have
filled.
If these conclusions, however, are correct, the action of healthy
surroundings will never by itself produce a robust out of a feeble
race, nor will the action of the best educational system ever
devised develop a race of wise men out of a race of fools. With this
non-inheritance of personally-acquired characteristics, the work of
individual improvement has to begin again in each generation, for
the gained ground is always lost, and racial improvement on these
lines must be at best immeasurably slow.
Racial change, improvement, or deterioration, is brought about, so
the biologists say, by what is termed selection, that is, by the
death or non-productiveness of certain individuals of a race, whereby
the others alone remain. If this remnant is organically superior,
the next generation inheriting only from them will be themselves
organically superior, and racial improvement will be brought about.
If this teaching be true, it follows that all our efforts for the
good of mankind will be of no avail unless selective agencies are
maintained, unless we are prepared to see that each generation of
children is the product of the best amongst us in our day. It is
quite possible therefore that, even under the present conditions
of better hygienic education and moral teaching, the race may be
deteriorating, and, indeed, from the biological standpoint, there is
every reason to suppose that it is. Our present efforts may therefore
be, after all, misplaced, so that it behoves us very carefully to
study the whole position. We have first critically to examine the
arguments which point to the non-inheritance of acquired character,
to understand the operation of selection, at present considered to
be by far the greatest factor in the production of race change,
and then to study man in his modern surroundings, with a view to
determining how far these are conducive to his ultimate good, and
how they may with greatest advantage be modified, with a view to
his improvement and advance.
FOOTNOTE
[1] The Spaniards have lost possession of Cuba and the Philippines
since this was first written.