EUGENICS
The possibility of raising the standards of human physique and
mentality by judicious means has been preached for years by the
apostles of eugenics, and has taken hold of the public mind to such an
extent that eugenic measures have found a place on the statute books
of a number of states, and that the public conscience disapproves of
marriages that are thought bound to produce unhealthy offspring.
The thought that it may be possible by these means to eliminate
suffering and to strive for higher ideals is a beautiful one, and makes
a strong appeal to those who have at heart the advance of humanity.
Our experiences in stock and plant breeding have shown that it is
feasible, by appropriate selection, to change a breed in almost any
direction that we may choose: in size, form, color. Even physiological
functions may be modified. Fertility may be increased, speed of
movement improved, the sensitiveness of sense organs modified, and
mental traits may be turned in special directions. {103} It is,
therefore, more than probable that similar results might be obtained in
man by careful mating of appropriately selected individuals,--provided
that man allowed himself to be selected in the same manner as we
select animals. We have also the right to assume that, by preventing
the propagation of mentally or physically inferior strains, the gross
average standing of a population may be raised.
Although these methods sound attractive, there are serious
limitations to their applicability. Eugenic selection can affect only
hereditary features. If an individual possesses a desirable quality
the development of which is wholly due to environmental causes, and
that will not be repeated in the descendants, its selection will
have no influence upon the following generations. It is, therefore,
of fundamental importance to know what is hereditary and what not.
Features, and color of eyes, hair and skin, are more or less rigidly
hereditary; in other words, in these respects children resemble
organically their parents, no matter in what environment they may
have been brought up. In other cases, however, the determining
influence of heredity is not so clear. We know that stature depends
upon hereditary causes, but that it is also greatly influenced by
environmental conditions prevailing during the period of growth.
Rapidity of development is no less influenced by these two causes, and
in general the more subject an anatomical {104} or physiological trait
to the influence of environment the less definitely can we speak of a
controlling influence of heredity, and the less are we justified in
claiming that nature, not nurture, is the deciding element.
It would seem, therefore, that the first duty of the eugenist should be
to determine empirically and without bias what features are hereditary
and what not.
Unfortunately this has not been the method pursued; but the battle cry
of the eugenists, “Nature not nurture,” has been raised to the rank of
a dogma, and the environmental conditions that make and unmake man,
physically and mentally, have been relegated to the background.
It is easy to see that in many cases environmental causes may convey
the erroneous impression of hereditary phenomena. Poor people develop
slowly and remain short of stature as compared to wealthy people. We
find, therefore, in a poor area, apparently a low hereditary stature,
that, however, would change if the economic life of the people were
changed. We find proportions of the body determined by occupations, and
apparently transmitted from father to son, provided both father and son
follow the same occupation. The more far-reaching the environmental
influences are that act upon successive generations the more readily
will a false impression of heredity be given. {105}
Here we reach a parting of the ways of the biological eugenist and
the student of human society. Most modern biologists are so entirely
dominated by the notion that function depends upon form that they seek
for an anatomical basis for all differences of function. The stress
laid upon the relation between anatomical form or constitution and
pathological conditions of the most varied character are an expression
of this tendency. Whenever the anatomical and pathological conditions
are actually physiologically interdependent such relations are found.
In other cases, as for instance, in the relation of anatomical form and
mental disturbances the relation may be quite remote. This is still
more the case when a relation between social phenomena and bodily
form is sought. Many biologists are inclined to assume that higher
civilization is due to a higher type; that better social health depends
solely upon a better hereditary stock; that national characteristics
are determined by the bodily forms represented in the nation.
The anthropologist is convinced that many different anatomical forms
can be adapted to the same social functions; and he ascribes greater
weight to these and believes that in many cases differences of form
may be due to adaptations to different functions. He believes that
different types of man may reach the same civilization, that better
health {106} may be produced by better bringing up of any of the
existing types of man.
The anatomical differences to which the biologist reduces social
phenomena are hereditary; the environmental causes which the
anthropologist sees reflected in human form are individually acquired,
and not transmitted by heredity.
In view of what has been said before it will suffice to point out a
very few examples.
Sameness of language is acquired under the same linguistic environment
by members of the most diverse human types; the same kinds of foods are
selected from among the products of nature by people belonging to the
same cultural area; similarity of movements is required in industrial
pursuits; the habits of sedentary or nomadic life do not depend upon
race but upon occupation. All of these are distributed without any
reference to physical type, and give ample evidence of the lack of
relation between social habits and racial position.
The serious demand must be made that eugenists cease to look at the
forms, functions, and activities of man from the dogmatic point of
view according to which each feature is assumed to be hereditary, but
that they begin to examine them from a more critical point of view,
requiring that in each and every case the hereditary character of a
trait must be established before it can be assumed to exist. {107}
The question at issue is well illustrated by the extended statistics
of cacogenics, of the histories of defective families. Setting aside
for a moment cases of hereditary pathological conditions, we find that
alcoholism and criminality are particularly ascribed to hereditary
causes. When we study the family histories in question, we can see
often, that, if the individuals had been protected by favorable home
surroundings and by possession of adequate means of support against
the abuse of alcohol or other drugs as well as against criminality,
many of them would have been no more likely to fall victims to their
alleged hereditary tendencies, than many a weakling who is brought up
under favorable circumstances. If they had resisted the temptations of
their environment they would have been entitled to be classed as moral
heroes. The scales applied to the criminal family and to the well-to-do
are clearly quite distinct; and, so far as heredity is concerned,
not much more follows from the collected data of social deficiences
than would follow from the fact that in an agricultural community the
occupation of farmers descends from father to son.
Whether or not constitutional debility based on hereditary causes
may also be proved in these cases is a question by itself that
deserves attention. It remains to be proved in how far it exists,
and furthermore it cannot be assumed without proof {108} that the
elimination of the descendants of delinquents would free us of all
those who possess equal constitutional debility. Of these matters more
anon.
It is an observed fact that the most diverse types of man may adapt
themselves to the same forms of life and, unless the contrary can
be proved, we must assume that all complex activities are socially
determined, not hereditary; that a change in social conditions will
change the whole character of social activities without influencing in
the least the hereditary characteristics of the group of individuals
concerned. Therefore, when the attempt is made to prove that defects
or points of excellence are hereditary, it is essential that all
possibility of a purely environmentally or socially determined
repetition of ancestral traits be excluded.
If this rigidity of proof is insisted on it will appear that many of
the data on which the theory of eugenics is based are unsatisfactory,
and that much greater care must be exerted than finds favor with the
enthusiastic adherents of eugenic theories.
All this does not contradict the hereditary transmission of individual
physical and mental characteristics, or the possibility of segregating,
by proper selection from among the large series of varying individual
forms that occur among all types of people, strains that have admirable
{109} qualities, and of suppressing others that are not so favored.
It is claimed that the practical application has become a necessity
because among all civilized nations there is a decided tendency to
general degeneration. I do not believe that this assertion has been
adequately proved. In modern society the conditions of life have become
markedly varied as compared with those of former periods. While some
groups live under most favorable conditions, that require active use
of body and mind; others live in abject poverty, and their activities
have more than ever before been degraded to those of machines. At
the same time, human activities are much more varied than formerly.
It is, therefore, quite intelligible that the functional activities
of each nation must show an increased degree of differentiation, a
higher degree of variability. The general average of the mental and
physical types of the people may remain the same, still there will
be a larger number now than formerly who fall below a certain given
low standard, while there will also be more who exceed a given high
standard. The number of defectives can be counted by statistics of poor
relief, delinquency and insanity, but there is no way of determining
the increase of those individuals who are raised above the norm of a
higher standard. Therefore they escape our notice. It may very well
be that the number of {110} defectives increases, without, however,
influencing the value of a population as a whole, because it is merely
an expression of an increased degree of variability.
Furthermore, arbitrarily selected, absolute standards do not retain
their significance. Even if no change in the absolute standard should
be made, the degree of physical and mental energy required under modern
conditions to keep one’s self above a certain minimum of achievement is
higher than formerly. This is due to the greater complexity of our life
and to the increasing number of competing individuals. When the general
level of achievement is raised, greater capacity is required to attain
a high degree of prominence than was needed in earlier periods of our
history. A mentally defective person may be able to hold his own in a
simple farming community and unable to do so in city life. The claim
that we have to contend against national degeneracy must, therefore, be
better substantiated than it is now.
This problem is further complicated by the advances of public hygiene,
which have lowered infant mortality, and have changed the composition
of the population, in so far as many who would have succumbed to
deleterious conditions in early years enter into the adult population
and have an influence upon the general distribution of vitality. {111}
There is still another important aspect of eugenics that should make
us pause before we accept this new ambitious theory as a panacea for
human ills. The radical eugenist treats the problem of procreation from
a purely rationalistic point of view, and assumes that the ideal of
human development lies in the complete rationalization of human life.
As a matter of fact, the conclusions to be drawn from the study of the
customs and habits of mankind show that such an ideal is unattainable,
and more particularly that the emotions clustering about procreation
belong to those that are most deeply seated, and that are ineradicable.
Here again the anthropologist and the biologist are at odds. The
natural sciences do not recognize in their scheme a valuation of the
phenomena of nature, nor do they count emotions as moving forces; they
endeavor to reduce all happenings to the actions of physical causes.
Reason alone reigns in their domain. Therefore the scientist likes to
look at mental life from the same rational standpoint, and sees as the
goal of human development an era of reason, as opposed to the former
periods of unhealthy fantastic emotion.
The anthropologist, on the other hand, cannot acknowledge such a
complete domination of emotion by reason. He rather sees the steady
advance of the rational knowledge of mankind, which is a source of
satisfaction to him no less than to the {112} biologist; but he sees
also that mankind does not put this knowledge to purely reasonable use,
but that its actions are swayed by emotions no less now than in former
times, although in many respects, unless the passions are excited,
the increase of knowledge limits the extreme forms of unreasonable
emotional activities. Religion and political life, and our everyday
habits, present endless proofs of the fact that our actions are the
results of emotional preferences, that conform in a general way to
our rational knowledge, but which are not determined by reason; that
we rather try to justify our choice of action by reason than have our
actions dictated by reason.
It is, therefore, exceedingly unlikely that a rational control of one
of the strongest passions of man could ever succeed. If even in matters
of minor importance evasion of the law is of common occurrence, this
would be infinitely more common in questions that touch our inner life
so deeply. The repugnance against eugenic legislation is based on this
feeling.
It cannot be doubted that the enforcement of eugenic legislation
would have a far-reaching effect upon social life, and that it would
tend to raise the standard of certain selected hereditary strains.
It is, however, an open question what would happen to the selected
strains owing to the changed social ideals; and it is inexcusable to
refuse to consider {113} those fundamental changes that would certainly
be connected with eugenic practice, and to confine ourselves to the
biological effect that may be wrought, for in the great mass of a
healthy population the biological mechanism alone does not control
social activities. They are rather subject to social stimuli.
Although we are ignorant of the results of a rigid application of
eugenics, a few of its results may be foretold with great certainty.
The eugenist who tries to do more than to eliminate the unfit will
first of all be called upon to answer the question what strains are the
best to cultivate. If it is a question of breeding chickens or Indian
corn, we know what we want. We desire many eggs of heavy weight, or a
large yield of good corn. But what do we want in man? Is it physical
excellence, mental ability, creative power, or artistic genius? We
must select certain ideals that we want to raise. Considering then the
fundamental differences in ideals of distinct types of civilization,
have we a right to give to our modern ideals the stamp of finality,
and suppress what does not fit into our life? There is little doubt
that we, at the present time, give much less weight to beauty than to
logic. Shall we then try to raise a generation of logical thinkers,
suppress those whose emotional life is vigorous, and try to bring it
about that reason shall reign supreme, and that human {114} activities
shall be performed with clocklike precision? The precise cultural forms
that would develop cannot be foretold, because they are culturally, not
biologically, determined; but there is little doubt that within certain
limits the intensity of emotional life,--regardless of its form,--and
the vigor of logical thought,--regardless of its content,--could be
increased or decreased by organic selection. Such a deliberate choice
of qualities which would modify the character of nations implies an
overestimation of the standards that we have reached, which to my
mind appears intolerable. Personally the logical thinker may be most
congenial to me, nevertheless I respect the sacred ideal of the dreamer
who lives in a world of musical tones, and whose creative power is to
me a marvel that surpasses understanding.
Without a selection of standards, eugenic practice is impossible; but
if we read the history of mankind aright, we ought to hesitate before
we try to set our standards for all time to come, for they are only one
phase in the development of mankind.
This consideration applies only to our right to apply creative eugenic
principles, not to the question whether practical results by eugenic
selection can be attained. I have pointed out before how much in this
respect is still hypothetical, or at least {115} of doubtful value,
because the social factors outweigh the biological ones.
At the present time the idea of creating the best human types by
selective mating is hardly a practical one. It dwells only as a
desirable ideal in the minds of some enthusiasts.
The immediate application of eugenics is rather concerned in
eliminating strains that are a burden to the nation or to themselves,
and in raising the standard of humanity by the suppression of the
progeny of the defective classes. I am doubtful whether eugenics
alone will have material results in this direction, for, in view
of the fundamental influence of environmental causes, that I set
forth before, it is perfectly safe to say that no amount of eugenic
selection will overcome those social conditions that have raised a
poverty and disease-stricken proletariat,--which will be reborn from
even the best stock, so long as the social conditions persist that
remorselessly push human beings into helpless and hopeless misery. The
effect would probably be to push new groups of individuals into the
deadly environment where they would take the place of the eliminated
defectives. Whether they would breed new generations of defectives may
be an open question. The continued presence of defectives would be a
certainty. Eugenics alone cannot solve the problem. It requires much
more an amelioration of the social conditions of the poor {116} which
would also raise many of the apparently defective to higher levels.
The present state of our knowledge of heredity permits us to say that
certain pathological conditions are hereditary and that apparently
healthy parents who belong to defective strains are very likely to have
among their descendants defective individuals. We may even predict for
a number of such cases how many among the descendants will be normal
and how many defective. The eugenist must decide whether he wants to
suppress all the normal individuals in these families in order to
avoid the development of the defectives, or whether he is willing to
carry the defectives along, perhaps as a burden to society, to their
relatives and in many cases even to themselves, for the sake of the
healthy children of such families. This question cannot be decided from
a scientific point of view. The answer depends upon ethical and social
standards. Many defective families have produced individuals who have
given us the greatest treasures our civilization possesses. Eugenists
might have prevented Beethoven’s father from having children. Would
they willingly take the responsibility of having mankind deprived of
the genius of Beethoven?
Another aspect of the problem is of much more vital importance to
mankind. The object of eugenics is to raise a better race and to do
away {117} with increasing suffering by eliminating those who are by
heredity destined to suffer and to cause suffering. The humanitarian
idea of the conquest of suffering, and the ideal of raising human
efficiency to heights never before reached, make eugenics particularly
attractive.
I believe that the human mind and body are so constituted that the
attainment of these ends would lead to the destruction of society.
The wish for the elimination of unnecessary suffering is divided by a
narrow margin from the wish for the elimination of all suffering.
While, humanely speaking, this may be a beautiful ideal, it is
unattainable. The performance of the labors of mankind and the conflict
of duties will always be accompanied by suffering that must be borne,
and that men must be willing to bear. Many of the works of sublime
beauty are the precious fruit of mental agony; and we should be poor,
indeed, if the willingness of man to suffer should disappear. However,
if we cultivate this ideal, then that which was discomfort yesterday
will be suffering to-day, and the elimination of discomforts will lead
to an effeminacy that must be disastrous to the race.
This effect is further emphasized by the increasing demands for
self-perfection. The more complex our civilization and the more
extended our technical skill and our knowledge, the more energy
{118} is demanded for reaching the highest efficiency, and the less
is it admissible that the working capacity of the individual should
be diminished by suffering. We are clearly drifting towards that
danger-line where the individual will no longer bear discomfort or pain
for the sake of the continuance of the race, and where our emotional
life is so strongly repressed by the desire for self-perfection,--or
by self-indulgence,--that the coming generation is sacrificed to the
selfishness of the living. The phenomenon that characterized the end of
antiquity, when no children were born to take the place of the passing
generations, is being repeated in our times and in ever widening
circles; and the more vigorously the eugenic ideals of the elimination
of suffering and of self-development are held up the sooner shall we
drift towards the destruction of the race.
Eugenics should, therefore, not be allowed to deceive us into the
belief that we should try to raise a race of supermen, nor that it
should be our aim to eliminate all suffering and pain. The attempt to
suppress those defective classes whose deficiencies can be proved by
rigid methods to be due to hereditary causes, and to prevent unions
that will unavoidably lead to the birth of disease-stricken progeny, is
the proper field of eugenics. How much can be and should be attempted
in this field depends upon the results of careful studies of {119} the
laws of heredity. Eugenics is not a panacea that will cure human ills;
it is rather a dangerous sword that may turn its edge against those who
rely on its strength.