DARWINISM AND RACE PROGRESSDARWINISMANDRACE PROGRESSBYJOHN BERRY HAYCRAFTM.D.,D.Sc.,F.R.S.E.Professor of Physiology, University College, CardiffSECONDPublisher’s logoEDITIONLONDONSWAN SONNENSCHEIN &CO.,LTD.NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS1900First Edition,January, 1895;Reprinted (with a few alterations),April, 1900.ToM. W. H.ANDL. S. H.PREFACEIn1890 I gave a lecture to the Edinburgh Health Society, which appeared asNo.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 theLancet.The present volume contains these lecturessomewhat 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.CONTENTSCHAPTER I.INTRODUCTORY.PAGEMuscle 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?1–18CHAPTER 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 Breeder19–43CHAPTER 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 indicated44–68CHAPTER 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 Types69–89CHAPTER 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 Patients90–110CHAPTER 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 Best111–134CHAPTER 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 Disastrous135–153CHAPTER 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 Life154–170Appendix171–180DARWINISM AND RACE PROGRESS.CHAPTER I.INTRODUCTORY.Muscle and Brain versus Political Organisation.Inthe 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 deteriorationcomparable 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 mostcases 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 remainedcomparatively 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 extentwith 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, andwould 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,barpolitical 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 Europeannations, 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 universallyoperative.[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, whilstthe 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 bycomparing 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 casesthe 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 passingrepresentatives, 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 thepresent 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 willappear 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 usof 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 arobust 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 examinethe 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.CHAPTER II.THE STANDPOINT OF BIOLOGISTS.Lamarck’s View on Heredity.Inthis chapter I shall invite attention to what the biologists have discovered concerning racial change, and the conditions under which the change occurs.Before the simultaneous publication in 1858 by Darwin and Wallace of their “Law of Natural Selection,” biologists believed in the Lamarckian view of heredity, a notable follower of Lamarck being our own Herbert Spencer. Lamarck briefly sums up his views in the following passage: “All that nature has caused individuals to acquire or lose through the circumstances to which their race has found itself for a time exposed, and consequently, through the predominant exercise of certain organs, or through a failure to exercise certain parts, it preserves through heredity to the new individuals that are produced by them, provided the changes acquired are common to the two sexes, or to those that have produced these new individuals.” Now this view is the one that is popularly held to this day, and it isthe very view which the new school of biologists have set themselves to combat.Lamarck would have accounted for the long neck of the giraffe by supposing that in remote ages its ancestors were short-necked like other animals, but that it exercised this neck in browsing off high trees, that the necks elongated in consequence of this stretching, and that this elongation was transmitted by heredity, although even by imperceptibly slight degrees, from one generation to another, until the part gradually grew to the present length. Lamarck would cordially have agreed with the modern educationalist in the belief that the children of a man who gives himself to learning will have better head-pieces than if the father had been a soldier or professional cricketer.In this Lamarckian view of heredity we have two ideas; first, that fresh characters may be acquired during an individual’s lifetime, due to the action of his surroundings or environment; and secondly, that these fresh characters are transmitted to the offspring and may produce in time marked racial change. The first idea is undoubtedly and admittedly true. The build of a soldier, a clerk, a ploughman, and an athlete is distinctive; the horn that grows upon a mechanic’s hand, and the development of the muscles of a blacksmith’s arm, are commonplace facts. It is the second idea, the supposed transmission of these acquired characters, which is now so seriously called in question.Darwin’s Law of Selection.The law of selection brought forward by Darwin and Wallace may be stated as follows:—No two offspring of the same parents are quite similar to each other, indeed they often vary to a considerable extent. Under the conditions in which they live, some of these offspring will have an advantage over the rest, dependent upon an inborn peculiarity. Inasmuch, therefore, as more progeny are produced than can ever survive, those most fitted to these surroundings will have the better chance of living. These will, in larger numbers, perpetuate the race and transmit their inborn qualities to the race, thus gradually eliminating the less suitable ones.Keeping to the case of the giraffe, Darwin and Wallace would explain the length of the neck somewhat as follows: With Lamarck they believe that the ancestor was short-necked, but the subsequent elongation they would explain in quite another way. They would take for granted that there are times when grass and foliage are scarce, that short-necked animals would soon exhaust the herbage and shrubs, but that the taller shrubs and trees would afford subsistence to animals with a higher reach. Amongst the ancestral giraffes those born with the longest necks would at such times have an advantage over the rest, who in large numbers would die out. Thelonger necked ones, more suited to their environment, would perpetuate their inborn quality of long-neckedness: of the next generation those again with the longest necks would survive, and so on. The Darwin and Wallace school of thinkers would, I quite believe, be prepared to state that by attention to education it would be possible to improve the mental qualities of the race, but they would teach that this improvement could only take place provided that the system made it possible for the clever man and woman to earn a better livelihood,marry early, andhave large families, while the stupid ones should produce fewer children, a condition which at present is far from being the rule.
DARWINISM AND RACE PROGRESS
DARWINISMANDRACE PROGRESSBYJOHN BERRY HAYCRAFTM.D.,D.Sc.,F.R.S.E.Professor of Physiology, University College, CardiffSECONDPublisher’s logoEDITIONLONDONSWAN SONNENSCHEIN &CO.,LTD.NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS1900
BYJOHN BERRY HAYCRAFTM.D.,D.Sc.,F.R.S.E.Professor of Physiology, University College, Cardiff
SECONDPublisher’s logoEDITION
LONDONSWAN SONNENSCHEIN &CO.,LTD.NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS1900
First Edition,January, 1895;Reprinted (with a few alterations),April, 1900.
First Edition,January, 1895;Reprinted (with a few alterations),April, 1900.
ToM. W. H.ANDL. S. H.
In1890 I gave a lecture to the Edinburgh Health Society, which appeared asNo.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 theLancet.
The present volume contains these lecturessomewhat 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.
John Berry Haycraft.
University College, Cardiff.18th October, 1894.
DARWINISM AND RACE PROGRESS.
Inthe 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 deteriorationcomparable 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.
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 mostcases 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.
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 remainedcomparatively 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 extentwith 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.
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, andwould 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.
We are not, however, bound to assume from these two examples that,barpolitical 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 Europeannations, 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 universallyoperative.[1]
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, whilstthe political union that binds us together is another.
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 bycomparing 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 casesthe 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 passingrepresentatives, a race whose future we can make or mar by the course we now pursue?
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 thepresent day.
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 willappear 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 usof 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.
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 arobust 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 examinethe 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.
[1]The Spaniards have lost possession of Cuba and the Philippines since this was first written.
Inthis chapter I shall invite attention to what the biologists have discovered concerning racial change, and the conditions under which the change occurs.
Before the simultaneous publication in 1858 by Darwin and Wallace of their “Law of Natural Selection,” biologists believed in the Lamarckian view of heredity, a notable follower of Lamarck being our own Herbert Spencer. Lamarck briefly sums up his views in the following passage: “All that nature has caused individuals to acquire or lose through the circumstances to which their race has found itself for a time exposed, and consequently, through the predominant exercise of certain organs, or through a failure to exercise certain parts, it preserves through heredity to the new individuals that are produced by them, provided the changes acquired are common to the two sexes, or to those that have produced these new individuals.” Now this view is the one that is popularly held to this day, and it isthe very view which the new school of biologists have set themselves to combat.
Lamarck would have accounted for the long neck of the giraffe by supposing that in remote ages its ancestors were short-necked like other animals, but that it exercised this neck in browsing off high trees, that the necks elongated in consequence of this stretching, and that this elongation was transmitted by heredity, although even by imperceptibly slight degrees, from one generation to another, until the part gradually grew to the present length. Lamarck would cordially have agreed with the modern educationalist in the belief that the children of a man who gives himself to learning will have better head-pieces than if the father had been a soldier or professional cricketer.
In this Lamarckian view of heredity we have two ideas; first, that fresh characters may be acquired during an individual’s lifetime, due to the action of his surroundings or environment; and secondly, that these fresh characters are transmitted to the offspring and may produce in time marked racial change. The first idea is undoubtedly and admittedly true. The build of a soldier, a clerk, a ploughman, and an athlete is distinctive; the horn that grows upon a mechanic’s hand, and the development of the muscles of a blacksmith’s arm, are commonplace facts. It is the second idea, the supposed transmission of these acquired characters, which is now so seriously called in question.
The law of selection brought forward by Darwin and Wallace may be stated as follows:—No two offspring of the same parents are quite similar to each other, indeed they often vary to a considerable extent. Under the conditions in which they live, some of these offspring will have an advantage over the rest, dependent upon an inborn peculiarity. Inasmuch, therefore, as more progeny are produced than can ever survive, those most fitted to these surroundings will have the better chance of living. These will, in larger numbers, perpetuate the race and transmit their inborn qualities to the race, thus gradually eliminating the less suitable ones.
Keeping to the case of the giraffe, Darwin and Wallace would explain the length of the neck somewhat as follows: With Lamarck they believe that the ancestor was short-necked, but the subsequent elongation they would explain in quite another way. They would take for granted that there are times when grass and foliage are scarce, that short-necked animals would soon exhaust the herbage and shrubs, but that the taller shrubs and trees would afford subsistence to animals with a higher reach. Amongst the ancestral giraffes those born with the longest necks would at such times have an advantage over the rest, who in large numbers would die out. Thelonger necked ones, more suited to their environment, would perpetuate their inborn quality of long-neckedness: of the next generation those again with the longest necks would survive, and so on. The Darwin and Wallace school of thinkers would, I quite believe, be prepared to state that by attention to education it would be possible to improve the mental qualities of the race, but they would teach that this improvement could only take place provided that the system made it possible for the clever man and woman to earn a better livelihood,marry early, andhave large families, while the stupid ones should produce fewer children, a condition which at present is far from being the rule.