HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT
Eugenics is not committed to the Darwinian doctrine of evolution,
although it would probably never have reached the stage of practical
politics but for the encouragement given to all systematic scientific
studies by Darwin's magnificent generalisations. Eugenics takes its
stand on the ascertained fact of heredity, and it owes an immense debt
to the patience with which Lamarck, the Darwins, Weissman and others
have piled instance upon instance to illustrate the fact that "the sins
of the fathers are visited upon the children unto the third and fourth
generation" and "the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's
teeth are set on edge." The doctrine of heredity has never been more
resonantly expressed than in these words although they show only one
side and that not the better side of heredity. We are indeed "begotten
not made." Nurture, or environment, has its place, and an important
one, in race improvement, but the overwhelming fact remains that
more than three-fourths of the elements which build up a human soul
are in its nature, not its nurture. The formative factor of greatest
importance in the making of human life and character is heredity.
Mankind has hitherto failed to grasp the full significance of this
admission. Horticulturists have made it the starting point of their
experiments until to-day the Luther Burbanks can almost create
what they will in plant life. Cattle-breeders, dog-fanciers, and
horse-farmers, are able to raise the value of their breeds to a
wonderful degree. Ornithologists have been equally successful; from the
original stock a hundred varieties come at the touch of the scientific
magician's wand. In each case even where at first quantity was
considered of no importance compared with quality, there has been a
steady and unmistakable increase in the effective numbers side by side
with a gigantic development of those elements of strength or beauty
which have been arrived at. Race suicide is a metaphysical phrase not
easily open to definition, but two things may be said about it at this
stage. Race improvement is utterly inconsistent with any intelligent
conception of race suicide. An increasing birthrate is not in itself
a guarantee of progress and may indeed be the means of a nation's
retrogression. Experience and logic lead to the confident conclusion
that increased vitality means increased fecundity.
To acknowledge the law of heredity with its concomitant scientific
implications, must inevitably change our mental outlook in many
directions. Accordingly as we relatively place heredity or environment
first, our views on social politics will be fundamentally sound or
unsound. Taking a large view of society it must make an abysmal
difference whether we think the race can or cannot be improved
(not merely polished or even enlightened but really changed) by
_modifications of environment_. We can no longer pursue the same and
by the same means if we come to the conclusion that the individual is
either born a potential asset to society or "damned into existence,"
a permanent drain on his fellows' comfort and wealth, even a possible
miasma of infectious criminality.
I am a Eugenist because I believe that the nature we have received from
hereditary sources transcends in effectiveness all the nurture which
follows birth. Eugenics means seeking for facts and applying them to
solve the greatest of all problems--looking for light by which the race
may control its destiny. Heredity in the animal and vegetable world may
be considered dispassionately enough. Geology and astronomy are only
hereditary studies affecting the birth of worlds. But from human birth
and sex, the mysteries of creation in their divinest form, from _these_
branches of the study of heredity the flaming sword of prudery warns
us away. The subject of human sex has been the play-ground of neglect,
ignorance, bigotry, superstition, persecution and every other foe to
inquiry. It has been the object of worship but not of explanation, of
romance but not of science, of abuse, mutilation, misunderstanding,
but not of study, reason and generalization. Eugenics of course aims
at expressing the scientific side of the process of which love is the
artistic. The rare handful of brave men and women who against unique
opposition have forced this question to the front are not to be blamed
if up to now Eugenics can hardly be said to exist as a systematised
science. It is in the nature of things that as a philosophy Eugenics
is hardly more than a guess, a probability, an hypothesis. Doubt,
uncertainty and half-heartedness inevitably accompany a movement so
undeservedly discredited as this has been. Without the means to collect
the enormous body of facts required to justify national action the
Eugenists have been content to rely upon personal experiences, isolated
family histories and the normal and abnormal facts which newspapers,
biographies and daily life presented to them. Eugenists have wrestled
against difficulties like Hercules in the Augean stable or Paul in
the Ephesian arena. In fact the stable and the arena throw more light
on Eugenics than any at present available from the human animal. The
existent biology of Eugenics means a study of non-human life. There
is a sufficiently extensive literature and digest of experiments
relating to animal and plant life to serve as the stock in trade of
a fairly complete system of Eugenics--if only fuschias were men or
men were mules. External observations of animal and plant life cannot
universally apply to man even passively, while the active interference
of the human botanist in the affairs of the unprotesting plants
separates these from men by an unpassable chasm.
The first need then for Eugenic study is some systematic collection of
the ascertainable facts as far as they relate to human beings. This
implies sufficient scientific interest in the phenomena of parentage
to encourage widespread earnest patient desire to exchange information
and to steadily accumulate enough knowledge to justify experiment in
positive and negative Eugenics. No sane Eugenist advocates universal
State action based on the existent records, but it would be against
all good precedent if the absence of sufficient knowledge on a vital
subject were allowed to stultify the efforts of those who seek for
fuller information. Nothing but good will ensue if positive experiments
are boldly labelled as such, instead of pretending that our twilight
of investigation is the full light of perfect knowledge. Experiments
in positive Eugenics will take various forms. They began with the
most ordinary baby-shows; they proceeded through municipal prizes for
the healthiest offsprings. An important stage arose when premiums in
some cities began to be offered to all parents whose babies survived
the critical first year of life. These were elementary experiments,
based on the right motive but ignoring the element of heredity. The
experiments of the future must be on a surer foundation. The current
criteria of judgment are sound enough as far as they go, they encourage
careful nurture, but the limitations of the experiments are those of
an unscientific age. Obviously the next step in the same direction
is to discriminate. The haphazard chance that of fifty children
properly nourished one may be distinguished by its superior physique
does not materially help us to solve our problem if we stop at this
phase. Having found our healthiest child we might at least try to
discover the hereditary history of its progenitors and take steps
to encourage further offsprings from so promising a source. Imagine
a scientific cattle-breeder possessing a perfect bull, contented
that one of its offsprings should take a single prize! Not to unduly
strain the analogy we might with all decorum and wisdom circulate
what knowledge we can glean of those facts which have made perfection
possible. Are we to be everlastingly contented with news of the
romantic, sensational, abnormal and criminal phenomena of sex while
our newspapers and official records are silent concerning ordinary and
desirable experiences, their causes and their results? Heredity as
the basis of legislation is never dreamt of, while our statute books
are crowded with laws passed in a panic, laws which bear no ratio
to essential facts, and laws which look at the elementary passions
of mankind through the refractory media of prejudice, ignorance and
well-meaning misconception. It rarely if ever occurs to legislators
that a scientific system of society demands an acquaintance with
the recently accepted conclusions of our greatest thinkers. We are
suffering to-day from a pre-Darwinian government in almost all our
States. "Authorities" of all kinds are quoted in support of and against
any given proposal, but the "authorities" are seldom the fittest. In
earlier days latin tags were considered a worthy conclusion to a speech
in Senate or Legislature. Nowadays poetry or literature is called
into requisition. Darwin, Spencer and Galton should at least have
taught us to take trouble to learn all about the subject in hand and
what bearing the scientific discoveries of our generation have upon
particular problems. It is a disease of the age that we are conscious
of our national short-comings in only the vaguest possible way. We are
ignorant of the full extent of our misfortunes and we do not apply to
them the time, trouble and money which are a preliminary necessity to
discovering a remedy, and we forget the dynamic difference which must
be made in our treatment of race problems as soon as we accept heredity
as the controlling factor. But the preliminaries must be insisted
on. Investigation, collation, classification, generalisation, and
legislation, must be taken in their right order.
The difficulties in the way of investigating the laws which govern
heredity have as usual led to shirking the issue altogether. Even
when we look the difficulty straight in the face, we pass it by. We
have made a god of environment. Our best social efforts hitherto in
legislation, social conventions, conduct and educational ideals (and
in modern times even our religions), have come to consider environment
as of paramount importance. But take environment at its highest it can
only be the best soil for the best seed. _That_ is a Eugenic ideal
also but it cannot convert a disease germ into a desirable citizen.
Over-emphasis of reform dependent on improved environment implies that
a deadly upas tree, if transplanted and properly watered and "given a
better chance," will reward society with a plentiful harvest of edible
nourishing fruit. The heartless school which on principles hates all
reform derives its chief support from the fact that the reform which
regards only environment too often descends to veneering vice with
respectability or dissipates itself in futilities of a grandmotherly
kind. The reformer of the future must study causes as well as
phenomena. The skilled physician regards symptoms as of importance
only to the extent that they assist the diagnosis of disease. Accurate
analysis must consider hereditary causes as well as local symptoms.
Environment when properly subordinated to and illuminated by heredity
does not cease to be important. Environment may provide wings to
fly with and an atmosphere capable of sustaining weight, even when
it cannot provide the will to fly. To return to our agricultural
symbolism: environment cannot make or change the nature of the seed, it
is the soil, the sunshine and the succulence, but it has to take the
seed as it is. Heredity is inside the seed and goes behind the seed to
the mother plant. Heredity is what our ancestors meant when they said
predestination, necessity, destiny.
Philosophers of pre-Darwin days have lured mankind into the pleasant
but dangerously untrue belief that human nature is essentially and
universally good. This crude generalisation of Rousseau's gospel
does some injustice to that great man's philosophy which represented
a necessary revolt from the soul-destroying perversion of heredity
which described man as uniformly "born in sin and shaped in iniquity."
Experience has revolted against both extremes. The Heavenly father is
no longer a Fiend who destines "one to heav'n and ten to hell," and
the Earthly Parent emerges from his ancient unimportance. Man is in
neither case fortuitous, his nature, potentiality and destiny are writ
large in the study of his heredity. We are all, like poets, born not
made; as we are: we remain: we develop on lines long ago laid down for
us by other forces than those environment can control and it is still
impossible to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. This consideration
puts into proper perspective the things which matter, and warns us
to cease vain expenditure on unscientific philanthropy. The efforts
wasted on watering weeds might have made the garden smile with fragrant
flowers. Environment means opportunity. We shall understand better how
and why environments need reconstruction when we recognise the superior
importance of heredity. We shall begin to realise the uselessness of
forcing qualities into the human organism, and become all the more
anxious to afford opportunity for developing whatever utilisable
qualities are already there existent. We shall learn to educate, in
the old sense of the word. We shall bring out the maximum of the good
within. We will no longer tolerate the cruelties and crudities of
abortive attempts to instil properties and qualities of character which
not being inherent can never be successfully inoculated.