“And the question of numbers is wholly immaterial, compared with that of character; or rather, its own materialness depends on the prior determination of character. Make your nation consist of knaves, and, as Emerson said long ago, it is but the case of any other vermin—the more, the worse. Or, to put the matter in narrower limits, it is a matter of no final concern to any parent whether he shall have two children, or four; but matter of quite final concern whether those he has shall, or shall not, deserve to be hanged.... You have to consider first, by what methods of land distribution you can maintain the greatest number of healthy persons; and secondly whether, if, by any other mode of distribution and relative ethical laws, you can raise their character, while you diminish their numbers, such sacrifices should be made, and to what extent?... The French and British public may and will, with many other publics, be at last brought ... to see farther that a nation's real strength and happiness do not depend upon properties and territories, nor on machinery for their defence, but on their getting such territory as theyhave, well filled with none but respectable persons, which is a way ofinfinitelyenlarging one's territory, feasible to every potentate.”
“And the question of numbers is wholly immaterial, compared with that of character; or rather, its own materialness depends on the prior determination of character. Make your nation consist of knaves, and, as Emerson said long ago, it is but the case of any other vermin—the more, the worse. Or, to put the matter in narrower limits, it is a matter of no final concern to any parent whether he shall have two children, or four; but matter of quite final concern whether those he has shall, or shall not, deserve to be hanged.... You have to consider first, by what methods of land distribution you can maintain the greatest number of healthy persons; and secondly whether, if, by any other mode of distribution and relative ethical laws, you can raise their character, while you diminish their numbers, such sacrifices should be made, and to what extent?... The French and British public may and will, with many other publics, be at last brought ... to see farther that a nation's real strength and happiness do not depend upon properties and territories, nor on machinery for their defence, but on their getting such territory as theyhave, well filled with none but respectable persons, which is a way ofinfinitelyenlarging one's territory, feasible to every potentate.”
Surely it is not necessary, one feels, and yet one knows it is necessary, again to lay down propositions of such shining truth, and one wonders whether they shine so brightly as to blind those who should see them: or what can conceivably be the explanation of such arguments as those of the Bishop of London and others who, in the face of our monstrous infant and child mortality, the awful pressure of population and over-crowding in our great cities, where every year a larger and larger proportion of the population lives, and is born and dies—plead for a higher birth-rate on moral grounds, of all amazing grounds conceivable; and those also who, fromthe military or so-called Imperial point of view, regarding men primarily as “food for powder,” in Shakespeare's phrase, read and quote statistics of population in order to promulgate the same advice?
To the moralist we need make no reply except simply to name the infant mortality which is at last coming to be recognised everywhere as, perhaps, the most abominable of all our scandals. To the militarist I would quote the case of our ally, Japan. He recalls the war between China and Japan, and its issue, and has some idea, perhaps, of the population ratio of those two Empires. How was it that Providence was on the side of the small battalions? He recalls also the Russo-Japanese war and its issue; and the population ratio of the two Empires in that case. How many other instances does not military history afford of the truth that in the human species mind is the master of matter? One would suppose that a critical historical enquiry had been made, proving that the results of all past wars could have been predicted by the simple method of estimating the total aggregate weight of the combatant nations in flesh and blood and bone! More than this, if the development of the art of warfare means anything, if there has been any such development since the days of fists and stones, it means, as all human development in every sphere means, the increasing dominance of mind over matter, character and initiative over machinery,dead or alive. Meanwhile, the estimate of warriors in terms of the scale and the foot rule are still accepted just as if they had not been rendered obsolete for ever with the passing of the “dragons of the prime.”
As regards the psychical worth of the soldier, is it not recognised, though too commonly forgotten, when we applaud the value of the veteran or of seasoned troops? Physically the veteran is, on the average, inferior tothe younger man. It is the psychical that gives him his worth, just as it was patriotism and sobriety that enabled the few sober Japanese to beat the many drunken Russians. It is safe to prophesy that, in all future war, the numerical criterion, which in effect weighs armies by the ton, as if war were merely a tug-of-war, will become less and less important—if, indeed, it is not already negligible; whilst the purely psychical qualities, from generalship and strategy and hygiene to initiative, judgment, accuracy, memory, and down finally to mere brutal red-blooded courage, will determine the issue.
Platitude, of course, but if true, why ignored? Why cannot our military advisers learn, in this respect, from the Navy? Owing to the very nature of the sea as compared with the land, in relation to the merely physical capacities of man, a Navy must be more intelligent than an Army, just as it requires more intelligence to make a boat than to walk; and it is in the Navy that the mechanical factor has been most completely transferred, so that the human machinery is at a discount and the steel machinery made by the human mind is much, whilst the value of the psychical in all its aspects dominates and controls the whole. Great Britain, as the foremost naval power in the world, should long ago have left to its ultimate fate amongst other nations the idea that quantity—so many tons of soldiers and so many tons of sailors—affords an estimate of the warring force of a nation: even if the whole history of this little isle and the possession of our present Empire did not teach, as the history of Rome taught and as the history of Athens teaches in another sphere, that not mass but mind makes a nation great.
“We cannot but feel that the application of biological results isonly beginning, and beginning with a tardiness which is a reproach to human foresight. There can be no doubt that it would pay the British nation to put aside a million a year for research on eugenics, or the improvement of the human breed.” (Prof. J. A. Thomson,Heredity, 1908.)
“We cannot but feel that the application of biological results isonly beginning, and beginning with a tardiness which is a reproach to human foresight. There can be no doubt that it would pay the British nation to put aside a million a year for research on eugenics, or the improvement of the human breed.” (Prof. J. A. Thomson,Heredity, 1908.)
It is evident that the facts and principles of heredity lie at the very basis of eugenics or race-culture in any of its forms, practical or impractical, scientific or unscientific. Our continual assumption throughout is thatlike tends to beget like, and it is on this ground that we desire to make parenthood the privilege of those whom we regard asinherentlythe best. If there were no such thing as heredity there could be no possibility of race-culture—nor indeed should we be here to discuss it. If a man's children were equally likely to be acorns or babies or tadpoles, the living world would not be the living world we know.
The potency of heredity is obscured to uncritical examination by the fact that that which is inheritable is that which was innate, inherent or germinal in the parent, as we shall shortly see. We, however, are apt to compare the child with the parent, who has perhaps been much modified by circumstances, so that the resemblance between father and child may seem to be slight. Yet if we could bring back before us that father, as he was, say at the age of two, and compare him with his two-year-old child, we should perhaps beastonished by the resemblance. But we see the acquirements or acquired characters of the parent; make no distinction between them and his inherent characters; fail to discover these acquired characters in his child;—and discount the importance of heredity. Then, again, the eugenist may be utterly confounded if he estimates the parental value of an individual without reference to this limitation of heredity. Here is a man of culture and accomplishment; his children, then, will presumably tend to be cultured and accomplished. But every kind of advantage that forethought and love and money can afford may have been showered upon that man. So far as native endowment was concerned, he may have indeed been far below mediocrity. Now it is native endowment alone that he can transmit, and our eugenic estimate of him is therefore erroneous and will lead to disappointment. It is impossible to lay too great stress upon the truth that in all eugenic plans or demands or practices we are assuming the fact of inheritance, and that therefore it is our first business to distinguish absolutely between that which tends to be inherited and that which, on the other hand, is never inherited.
Yet again, this distinction is of almost incalculable social moment in so far as it affects the process of selection actually occurring in society. This, perhaps, has not been adequately recognised. One may repeat a former statement of this point, which is cardinal for the eugenist:—
“Even supposing that we were all identical at birth, yet, since we would come to differ from one another in virtue of different acquirements, due to our adaptation to differing environments, natural selection would ultimately have different individuals from which to select. Those who had made the most advantageous acquirements, such as industry or great knowledge, would tend to survive and prosper, whilst those who had made disadvantageous acquirements, such as laziness or the loss of sight or limbs, would be pushed to the wall. That process, of course, occurs in society at the present day to a greater or less degree, but it has only immediate and temporary or contemporary consequences. For if we recall the assertion that acquirements cannot be transmitted, we shall see that the selection of those who have made advantageous acquirements cannot benefit the next generation, since these acquirements die with their makers. The only process of natural selection which can result in progress is one which consists in the selection of favourable ... inborn and therefore transmissible characters, such as good digestion, the musical sense, exceptional intelligence, the sympathetic temperament or what not (in so far as these are inborn)—the reason being that such are transmissible and that the children of persons so selected will tend to inherit their parents' good fortune. There is a fictitious way in which we speak of a child inheriting his father's acquirements, as when his father has acquired a fortune; but the child does much better to inherit his father's good sense or good health, which were characters inborn in him. Acquirements, then, are all very well for the day, but it is inborn characters that alone count for the morrow.”[26]
“Even supposing that we were all identical at birth, yet, since we would come to differ from one another in virtue of different acquirements, due to our adaptation to differing environments, natural selection would ultimately have different individuals from which to select. Those who had made the most advantageous acquirements, such as industry or great knowledge, would tend to survive and prosper, whilst those who had made disadvantageous acquirements, such as laziness or the loss of sight or limbs, would be pushed to the wall. That process, of course, occurs in society at the present day to a greater or less degree, but it has only immediate and temporary or contemporary consequences. For if we recall the assertion that acquirements cannot be transmitted, we shall see that the selection of those who have made advantageous acquirements cannot benefit the next generation, since these acquirements die with their makers. The only process of natural selection which can result in progress is one which consists in the selection of favourable ... inborn and therefore transmissible characters, such as good digestion, the musical sense, exceptional intelligence, the sympathetic temperament or what not (in so far as these are inborn)—the reason being that such are transmissible and that the children of persons so selected will tend to inherit their parents' good fortune. There is a fictitious way in which we speak of a child inheriting his father's acquirements, as when his father has acquired a fortune; but the child does much better to inherit his father's good sense or good health, which were characters inborn in him. Acquirements, then, are all very well for the day, but it is inborn characters that alone count for the morrow.”[26]
It may be added that the time is coming when there will be a radical “transvaluation,” as Nietzsche would say, of the two fashions in which a father “leaves” something to his children. When a question is asked on this head now-a-days, we mean, foolishly enough, to enquire how much money the father left his child, and we say of a man that he has “inherited” a fortune. We can see plainly enough, as Theognis did two thousand five hundred years ago, that such an “inheritance” may and often does work in an anti-eugenic fashion. The gilded fool is swallowed by the maiden whose native sense would have rejected such a pill without its coat, and so the most pitiable degenerate becomes the father of his like. This point will be alluded to later. The present argument is that when we ask what a father“left” his children, we should really desire to learn what hegavethem when he was still alive and begot them. These vital, or mortal, characters which they inherit—shall we say good health or insanity—are of incalculably more moment to them as individuals than any monetary fortune, and of incalculably more moment for the future. Yet again is it true that there is no wealth but life, and the best “fortune” or wealth that you can leave your children is sane and vigorous life.
The case of slum childhood.—We have already seen that even in the slums the children make a fresh start in a wonderful way, that their stunted growth, their proneness to disease, are mainly due to their environment, which it is therefore our duty to improve. This isin generaltrue, and depends evidently upon the fact that the acquired deterioration of the parents—e.g., dental decay—is not transmitted to their children—poisonings apart—so that the children make a fresh start where their parents did. It is necessary to point this out again and again, as the present writer for one has long been weary of doing, because it indicates our immediate duty in this respect, and forbids us to shirk it with any too-comprehensive phrases about “national degeneration.” Now who could have predicted that this plain and simple truth would be regarded by some people as constituting a denial—on strict scientific grounds, and as the very latest scientific pronouncement—of the principle of heredity? “The bubble of heredity has been pricked,” says Mr. Bernard Shaw.
But popular muddleheadedness does not affect the palpable and universal truth that theinherentcharacters of parents do tend to be inherited by their children; nor yet that these inherent characters differ profoundly in different individuals; nor yet the eugenic argument, which is that for purposes of parenthood, which meansfor the entire future, some of these should be taken and others left.
“Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?... Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” These classical words surely have a special value for the eugenist. As we have said, it is his particular necessity, alike in theory and in practice, to “know” the real nature, the innate, inherent, germinal characters, of the individuals who may or may not be parents: and these, as we have seen, are frequently obscured by the action of the environment—as, for instance, in the population of the slums on the one hand, or the man of factitious culture on the other hand. But “by their fruits ye shall know them.” In general, the children inherit what was innate in their parents, and in many an instance the surest way in which you could ascertain what the parent really was by nature—what, as we say, Nature “meant” him to be—is by a study of his children. Only, of course, we must take the children very young indeed, before environment has made its mark upon them also, for better or for worse. Thus, when we find the new-born baby of some pallid, half-starved, stunted mother in the slums, to be healthy and vigorous and beautiful,[27]by this fruit we shall know what the mother might and should have been. A healthy baby goes far to demonstrate that the stock is healthy. This is one of the cardinal truths which emerge from the study of infant mortality, and it may be perhaps permitted to warn some students of race-culture of the errors into which they are bound to fall if they do not reckon with what the student of infant mortality is constantly asserting: viz., that the babies of the slums, seen early, before ignorance andneglect have had their way with them, are physically vigorous and promising in certainly not less than ninety per cent. of cases. This primarily demonstrates, of course, the murderous nature of our infant mortality; but it also demonstrates to the eugenist that these classes are perhaps not so unworthy as he may fancy. By their new-born babies ye shall know them. It is under the influence of such considerations that the present writer, for one, is somewhat chary of predictions and proposals based upon the relative fertility of different classes of the community or of the masses as compared with the classes. Directly the eugenist begins to talk in terms ofsocialclasses (as Mr. Galton has never done), he is skating on thin ice, and if it lets him through, he will find the remains of many of his rash predecessors beneath it.[28]
In fine, then, if we observe the distinction between the innate and the acquired, which is the distinction between the transmissible and the intransmissible, this is so far from denying the fact of heredity at all as in reality to emphasise its potency whilst undoubtedly diminishing its range.
A criticism of terms.—In order that this distinction may be clear and never forgotten, it is well to look to our vocabulary—words being good servants but bad masters. We should certainly have this vocabulary purged altogether of a certain word in common and uncritical employment, especially by the medical profession. This is the thoroughly misleading, indeterminateand useless word “congenital.” Not on one occasion in a hundred of its use does any examined meaning attach to it. The word is commonly used as the equivalent of innate, inherent, inborn or germinal. Now nothing is truly innate or inborn save what was present in the germ. But with childish confusion of thought, we persist in attaching quite undeserved importance to thebirthof those animals which are brought forth “alive”—as if a bird's egg were not alive. Hence we speak of any character present at birth as congenital, and then we assume that congenital is synonymous with inherent or germinal. But it is an irrelevant detail that a young mammal happens to leave its mother at the ninth week or month. During the whole period that it spends within its mother, it is to be regarded as an individual organism with its own environment. If that environment so affects it as to strangle a limb, the result is an acquirement, though it may be present at birth. An acquirement is an acquirement, whether it be acquired five minutes or months before, or five minutes or months after, the change of environment which we call birth. Thus a character may be congenital—that is, present at birth—but not inherent or germinal, not inborn at thereal birth, which was the union of the maternal and paternal germ-cells at conception. Such congenital characters are really acquirements, and—poisonings apart—are not transmissible. In common discussion this distinction is wholly ignored; and two distinct things, fundamentally different in origin and in potency, are lumped together under the blessed word “congenital.”
This word is equally foolish and useless in an opposite direction. It constantly leads those who use it to suppose that the inherent characters of an individual are conterminous with his congenital characters or his characters at birth, and that thus any characters which hedisplays at a later age are acquired. All this comes of the absurdly delusive significance attached to the change of environment called birth, and may doubtless be traced historically to the remotest superstitions which imagined that a baby is not alive until it is born and breathes, or that the soul or breath orpneumaor “vital principle” is breathed into it at the moment of birth. We know, however, that a man may display for the first time at the age of twenty or sixty a character which was as truly inherent in his constitution as his nose or his spinal column—perhaps a beard, perhaps a mental character, perhaps a disease, or what not. Now this was not congenital though it was inherent. But as long as the stupid[29]word “congenital” is used as it is, we shall fail to realise that inherent characters may display themselves in an individual at any time after birth as at any time before birth. Thus, to sum up, a character may be congenital or ratherpre-congenital, yet not inherent but acquired: a character may be post-congenital, yet not acquired but inherent. Now the all-important question as regards heredity is not at what date in the history of an individual a character appears—as, for instance, before birth or after birth; but, whether that character is inherent and therefore transmissible and therefore a possible architect of the future of mankind; or merely an acquirement, with which—the racial poisons apart—heredity has no concern.
It is suggested, then, that the word congenital be expunged from the vocabulary of science, or that, if it be retained, some meaning or other—any will do—be attached to it. If the word is to be retained, and if it be agreed to attach a meaning to it, probably “at birth” would be the most convenient. If this were agreed upon,then the phrase “congenital blindness,” now in common use, could be retained, as it would then accurately indicate the nature of the blindness in question, which is due almost invariably, if not invariably, to an infection acquired at the moment of birth.
Yet further. When we say that a man's intelligence or length of limb or whatever it be is hereditary, we mean in ordinary speech that this character can be traced in one or more of his ancestors; and that is, of course, an accurate use of the term. But Shakespeare, for instance, had unremarkable ancestors, so that no one would say that his genius was hereditary; are we, then, to say that it was acquired? Every one would protest at once that a poet is born and not made—than which there is certainly no truer popular saying. What, then, is to be said of it if it was neither hereditary nor acquired? The truth is that language is again at fault. Shakespeare's genius was of inherent or germinal origin—the poet is born and not made: or, more accurately, the poet is conceived and not made, either before birth or after it. Therefore, though Shakespeare did not inherit his mother's genius or his father's genius, neither of them having such a gift to transmit, yet his genius was certainly potential either in the maternal or paternal germ-cell which united to form him, or in both; or at the least arose in consequence of that compromise or rearrangement or settlement, shall we say, which is in effect always agreed upon by the two germ-cells in bi-parental reproduction. Now the two germ-cells are the hereditary material. They were given to Shakespeare by his parents; nay more, they made him. His genius, then, was hereditary in an absolutely correct sense of the word, yet not in the sense of ordinary speech, nor even in the sense in which it is employed by Mr. Galton in his book onHereditary Genius. This confusion of terms is responsible for muchconfusion of thought. It must the more urgently be cleared up because of the discoveries in heredity initiated by the Abbot Mendel, forty years ago, and now included in the department of the science of heredity which is called Mendelism. We learn from this that highly definite characters may appear in offspring though there was no sign of them in either parent. These, then, are not hereditary in the sense of ordinary speech. Yet, in a more accurate sense of the word they can be proved to be hereditary—nay more, the manner and proportion of their transmission can be predicted in the most exact mathematical terms. These characters were not present in the parent's body; they did not lie open to view in the parent; they were not patent in the parent. They were latent, however, they lay hid, in the parent, or rather in the germ-plasm of which that parent was the host. In many such cases, if we go back a generation further we find that the character in question was patent in a grand-parent. A mother's son may suffer from hæmophilia or the bleeding disease, yet she is not a “bleeder,” nor is the boy's father; but her father was a bleeder, and the disease is, of course, hereditary in her son, though neither of his parents displayed a trace of it.
Thus an individual may inherit or may have inherent in the germ-cells from which he was formed characters which were not present in either parent. They were, however, potentially present in the germ-cells of which those parents were the trustees.
But, the reader will say, do we find in the case of every “sport” or “transilient variation,” such as Shakespeare, that the new character was, after all, present in some one or other of his ancestors though absent in his immediate parents? The answer is negative, certainly. But genius, to take this case, is a combination of qualities. And the Mendelians are now able to call into existence organismsof new kinds by combination of qualities derived from one parent, or rather from one parental line, with other qualities, formerly apparently incompatible with them derived from the other parental line. Thus Professor Biffen of Cambridge has called into existence a new kind of wheat such as never existed before—a wheat combining the quality technically called “strength,” hitherto lacking in all kinds of wheat capable of being profitably grown in Great Britain, with the power of yielding a large crop and other good qualities found in home-grown wheat. He has also produced a wheat which, together with other desirable qualities, is immune from the disease known as “rust,” this immunity having never been found before associated with the other good qualities in question. These advances will not long be limited to the vegetable world merely. Perhaps it requires no very great imagination, after all, to suppose that even something like that combination of qualities which we call genius may some day be produced at will in mankind.
Such a new wheat, then,—I will not say such a Shakespeare—owes its unique and unprecedented properties to heredity, and yet there was never anything like it before. Its “genius” is not “hereditary.”
The wordsinnateandinbornare harmless and may be employed, though the apparent emphasis on birth is rather unfortunate. We mean, however, by innate or inborn qualities, qualities which were potential in the germ. The genius of Shakespeare was innate or inborn. It was present potentially at his real birth, the union of the parental cells. It preceded his “birth” in the ordinary sense of the word: Shakespeare, when onlyin embryo, was a Shakespearein embryo.
Better still is the wordinherent, which, of course, literally means “sticking in.” By anything inherent we mean that which was there from the first as part andparcel of, as indeed essential to, the entity to which we refer. Now inherent characters are always inherited in the accurate sense that they inhere in the germ-cells, which are the inherited material. As these germ-cells make us or as we are made out of them, it follows, of course, that all our potentialities whatsoever, our ultimate fates in every particular, partly depend upon inheritance.[30]
Natureandnurtureare antithetic terms of Shakespearean origin which are in frequent use and much favoured by Mr. Galton. That which comes by nature is the inborn, inherent, or germinal; and that is due to nurture which is the result of the converse of the germinal with the environment—a man's accent, for instance.
Perhaps, in some ways,germinalis the most useful word of all, though inherent is so convenient and familiar, as well as being accurate etymologically, that it has been employed throughout this book. Not only is the word germinal strictly accurate, but also it suggests the idea of the germ-plasm, and has the particular virtue of avoiding all reference to the change of environment to which young mammals are subjected and which is called birth.
There remains the terminological difficulty that, as I have tried to show, the individual may display characters which were potential in the germ, inherent and necessarily inherited, though they did not appear in the parent nor yet in any ancestor. We have to face the paradox, then, that in natural inheritance a parent can transmit what he has not got, though this does not apply to the unnatural inheritance of property in human society. Now what word is there which shall indicate the origin or atleast the time and conditions of origin, of such characters as these? They are germinal, yet they are—in some cases—not wholly present in either of the germ-cells which united to form the new individual in question. They are present, however, in the new single cell from which this individual, like every living organism, takes its origin.[31]The terms “congerminal” or “conceptional” might be employed.
“Acquired character,” even, is a bad term. It replaced “functionally-produced modification,” which was long employed by Spencer. The blacksmith's biceps answers to this phrase. It is this and other such modifications that are non-transmissible. Alcoholic degeneration is not a “functionally-produced modification,” but it is an “acquired character,” as is lead poisoning. These do produce results in offspring—naturally enough. If the older phrase were still the one employed, we should see that the Weismannian argument as to non-transmission does not apply tosuch“acquired characters.”
The word “reversion,” also, not to say “atavism,” may well be dropped. The attempted justification of its older meaning by Professor Thomson has led to severe and conclusive Mendelian criticism. The “reversion” of fancy pigeons to the blue ancestor is simply due to the coming together of Mendelian units long separated. The “reversion” of the feeble-minded is not reversion but the result of poisoning—diversion, orperversion, if you like. Primitive man was not feeble-minded, nor is the ape. Science has no further use for the word as it is at present employed.
Maternal impressions.—We are now, at last, after our attempt to clear up the vocabulary of heredity, ina position to consider certain doctrines and popular beliefs which bear very directly upon race-culture. Realising, for instance, that “congenital” means nothing; realising as perhaps some of us have not so clearly realised before,whenexactly it is that the new human being comes into existence, we shall be prepared to understand how definite and indisputable are the denials which science offers to certain popular ideas.
Thus, for instance, in the interests of race-culture, or, to be more particular, in the interests of her unborn baby, the expectant mother may faithfully follow the example of Lucy inThe Ordeal of Richard Feverel.[32]Does this have its intended effect? The answer is an unqualified negative. Consider the case. The baby is at this time already a baby, though rather small and uncanny, floating in a fluid of its own manufacture. Its sole connection with its mother is by means of its umbilical cord—that is to say, blood vessels, arterial and venous. There is no nervous connection whatever: absolutely nothing but the blood-stream, carried along a system of tubes. This blood is the child's blood, which it sends forth from itself along the umbilical cord to a special organ, the placenta or after-birth, half made by itself and half made by the mother, in which the child's blood travels in thin vessels so close to the mother's blood that their contents can be interchanged. Yet the two streams never actually mix. The child's blood, having disposed of its carbonic acid and waste-products to the mother's blood, and having received therefrom oxygen and food, returns so laden to the child. Pray how is the mother's reading of history to make the child a historian? If, after birth, a small operation wereperformed, so that some of the mother's blood should run along an artificial tube into one of her baby's veins, the effective connection between the two organisms would in a sense be actually closer than it was before birth, when, as has been said, the two streams are always kept apart. Should we expect such an operation to serve the child for education? If the mother then acquired a scar should we expect it to give the child a similar scar?
We see now why the learning of geometry on the part of the mother before its birth will not set her baby upon that royal road to geometry of which Euclid rightly denied the existence—any more than after its birth. Such a thing does not happen, and there is no conceivable means by which it could happen—unless we are to call in telepathy. All maternal hopes and efforts of this kind are utterly misguided: as misguided as if the father entertained similar hopes. Let the devoted mother acquaint herself not with what historians are pleased to call history, but with the history of the developing human mind and body, so that she may be a fit educator of her child when it is born.
Let her also realise that her blood is everything to her child. It is food and air and organ of excretion. If she introduces alcohol into her blood in any considerable quantity she is feeding her child on poisoned food. Surely the reader must see the distinction between a case like this and the supposed transmission of historical knowledge or even historical aptitude from mother to baby by the diligent perusal of histories. Yet though the distinction is so palpable and evident, there are extremists who believe and even print their beliefs that the denial of the one (supposed) possibility, which is palpably inconceivable, logically carries with it a denial of the other possibility, which is indeed a palpable necessity. Or, to state the criticism in another way, there are those who,if we protest that the introduction of poisons into the mother's organism must surely involve risk to the child who is nourished by her blood, will retort, “Oh, well, I suppose you believe that if you learn a number of languages before your next child is born, he or she will be a linguist!”[33]
Hereditary genius.—Mr. Galton's world-famous work onHereditary Geniuswas published in 1869 and reprinted with a most valuable additional chapter in 1892. It has long been out of print, however, and for the definite purpose of attempting to arouse the reader's interest in it so that he may somehow or other obtain a copy to read, I may here go over one or two points, chosen to that end. The argument, of course, is that ability is hereditary.[34]
This, in the judgment of most unbiassed people, Mr. Galton conclusively proved: and we do not at all realise to-day how repugnant and revolutionary this doctrine appeared to popular opinion some forty years ago. Mr. Galton has, however, followed up his citation of facts on more than one occasion since,[35]and those who now deny his view belong to that very large majority of any population which finds itself able to pronounce confidently upon the value of an author's work withoutthe labour, found necessary by less fortunate people, of reading it.
The following quotation states the question of national eugenics in final form:—
“As an example of what could be sought with advantage, let us suppose that we take a number, sufficient for statistical purposes, of persons occupying different social classes, those who are the least efficient in physical, intellectual, and moral grounds forming our lowest class, and those who are the most efficient forming our highest class. The question to be solved relates to the hereditary permanence of the several classes. What proportion of each class is descended from parents who belong to the same class, and what proportion is descended from parents who belong to each of the other classes? Do those persons who have honourably succeeded in life, and who are presumably, on the whole, the most valuable portion of our human stock, contribute on the aggregate their fair share of posterity to the next generation? If not, do they contribute more or less than their fair share, and in what degree? In other words, is the evolution of man in each particular country favourably or injuriously affected by its special form of civilisation?“Enough is already known to make it certain that the productiveness of both the extreme classes, the best and the worst, falls short of the average of the nation as a whole. Therefore, the most prolific class necessarily lies between the two extremes, but at what intermediate point does it lie? Taken altogether, on any reasonable principle, are the natural gifts of the most prolific class, bodily, intellectual, and moral, above or below the line of national mediocrity? If above that line, then the existing conditions are favourable to the improvement of the race. If they are below that line, they must work towards its degradation.”
“As an example of what could be sought with advantage, let us suppose that we take a number, sufficient for statistical purposes, of persons occupying different social classes, those who are the least efficient in physical, intellectual, and moral grounds forming our lowest class, and those who are the most efficient forming our highest class. The question to be solved relates to the hereditary permanence of the several classes. What proportion of each class is descended from parents who belong to the same class, and what proportion is descended from parents who belong to each of the other classes? Do those persons who have honourably succeeded in life, and who are presumably, on the whole, the most valuable portion of our human stock, contribute on the aggregate their fair share of posterity to the next generation? If not, do they contribute more or less than their fair share, and in what degree? In other words, is the evolution of man in each particular country favourably or injuriously affected by its special form of civilisation?
“Enough is already known to make it certain that the productiveness of both the extreme classes, the best and the worst, falls short of the average of the nation as a whole. Therefore, the most prolific class necessarily lies between the two extremes, but at what intermediate point does it lie? Taken altogether, on any reasonable principle, are the natural gifts of the most prolific class, bodily, intellectual, and moral, above or below the line of national mediocrity? If above that line, then the existing conditions are favourable to the improvement of the race. If they are below that line, they must work towards its degradation.”
The main body of the book deals with enquiries in special cases—the judges of England between 1660 and 1865, statesmen, commanders, authors, men of science, poets, musicians, painters, divines, senior classics of Cambridge, oarsmen and wrestlers.
The concluding chapters should be printed in gold. Only one or two notes can here be made. Mr. Galtonbelieves that the dark ages were largely due to the celibacy enjoined by religious orders on their votaries:—
“Whenever a man or woman was possessed of a gentle nature that fitted him or her to deeds of charity, to meditation, to literature or to art, the social condition of the time was such that they had no refuge elsewhere than in the bosom of the Church. But the Church chose to preach and exact celibacy, and the consequence was that these gentle natures had no continuance, and thus, by a policy so singularly unwise and suicidal that I am hardly able to speak of it without impatience, the Church brutalised the breed of our forefathers. She acted precisely as if she had aimed at selecting the rudest portion of the community to be, alone, parents of future generations. She practised the arts which breeders would use, who aimed at creating ferocious, currish, and stupid natures. No wonder that club law prevailed for centuries over Europe; the wonder rather is that enough good remained in the veins of Europeans to enable their race to rise to its present very moderate level of natural morality.”
“Whenever a man or woman was possessed of a gentle nature that fitted him or her to deeds of charity, to meditation, to literature or to art, the social condition of the time was such that they had no refuge elsewhere than in the bosom of the Church. But the Church chose to preach and exact celibacy, and the consequence was that these gentle natures had no continuance, and thus, by a policy so singularly unwise and suicidal that I am hardly able to speak of it without impatience, the Church brutalised the breed of our forefathers. She acted precisely as if she had aimed at selecting the rudest portion of the community to be, alone, parents of future generations. She practised the arts which breeders would use, who aimed at creating ferocious, currish, and stupid natures. No wonder that club law prevailed for centuries over Europe; the wonder rather is that enough good remained in the veins of Europeans to enable their race to rise to its present very moderate level of natural morality.”
Yet further:—
“The policy of the religious world in Europe was exerted in another direction, with hardly less cruel effect on the nature of future generations, by means of persecutions which brought thousands of the foremost thinkers and men of political aptitudes to the scaffold, or imprisoned them during a large part of their manhood, or drove them as emigrants into other lands. In every one of these cases the check upon their leaving issue was very considerable. Hence the Church, having first captured all the gentle natures and condemned them to celibacy, made another sweep of her huge nets, this time fishing in stirring waters, to catch those who were the most fearless, truth-seeking, and intelligent, in their modes of thought, and therefore the most suitable parents of a high civilisation, and put a strong check, if not a direct stop, to their progeny. Those she reserved on these occasions, to breed the generations of the future, were the servile, the indifferent, and, again, the stupid. Thus, as she—to repeat my expression—brutalised human nature by her system of celibacy applied to the gentle, she demoralised it by her system of persecution of the intelligent, the sincere, and the free. It is enough to make the blood boil to think of the blind folly that has causedthe foremost nations of struggling humanity to be the heirs of such hateful ancestry, and that has so bred our instincts as to keep them in an unnecessarily long-continued antagonism with the essential requirements of a steadily advancing civilisation.”
“The policy of the religious world in Europe was exerted in another direction, with hardly less cruel effect on the nature of future generations, by means of persecutions which brought thousands of the foremost thinkers and men of political aptitudes to the scaffold, or imprisoned them during a large part of their manhood, or drove them as emigrants into other lands. In every one of these cases the check upon their leaving issue was very considerable. Hence the Church, having first captured all the gentle natures and condemned them to celibacy, made another sweep of her huge nets, this time fishing in stirring waters, to catch those who were the most fearless, truth-seeking, and intelligent, in their modes of thought, and therefore the most suitable parents of a high civilisation, and put a strong check, if not a direct stop, to their progeny. Those she reserved on these occasions, to breed the generations of the future, were the servile, the indifferent, and, again, the stupid. Thus, as she—to repeat my expression—brutalised human nature by her system of celibacy applied to the gentle, she demoralised it by her system of persecution of the intelligent, the sincere, and the free. It is enough to make the blood boil to think of the blind folly that has causedthe foremost nations of struggling humanity to be the heirs of such hateful ancestry, and that has so bred our instincts as to keep them in an unnecessarily long-continued antagonism with the essential requirements of a steadily advancing civilisation.”
For this final quotation no apology is needed:—
“The best form of civilisation in respect to the improvement of the race, would be one in which society was not costly; where incomes were chiefly derived from professional sources, and not much through inheritance; where every lad had a chance of showing his abilities, and, if highly gifted, was enabled to achieve a first-class education and entrance into professional life, by the liberal help of the exhibitions and scholarships which he had gained in his early youth; where marriage was held in as high honour as in ancient Jewish times; where the pride of race was encouraged (of course I do not refer to the nonsensical sentiment of the present day, that goes under that name); where the weak could find a welcome and a refuge in celibate monasteries or sisterhoods, and lastly, where the better sort of emigrants and refugees from other lands were invited and welcomed, and their descendants naturalised.”
“The best form of civilisation in respect to the improvement of the race, would be one in which society was not costly; where incomes were chiefly derived from professional sources, and not much through inheritance; where every lad had a chance of showing his abilities, and, if highly gifted, was enabled to achieve a first-class education and entrance into professional life, by the liberal help of the exhibitions and scholarships which he had gained in his early youth; where marriage was held in as high honour as in ancient Jewish times; where the pride of race was encouraged (of course I do not refer to the nonsensical sentiment of the present day, that goes under that name); where the weak could find a welcome and a refuge in celibate monasteries or sisterhoods, and lastly, where the better sort of emigrants and refugees from other lands were invited and welcomed, and their descendants naturalised.”
The study of psychical inheritance.—This early work of Mr. Galton has been followed by much more on the same lines. Contemporary psychology, however, isjust beginningto indicate the lines on which new enquiry is needed. The naïve assertions of the actuary as to the inheritance of, say, “conscientiousness” are not useful to the psychologist, who has some idea of the structure and history of that most complex social product we call conscience. The psychologists must analyse out for us those elementary units of the mind upon which experience and the social state, education and suggestion act, to make human nature as we know it. The reader may be directed to Dr. McDougall's recent work onSocial Psychology—written at the present writer's suggestion—for an outline analysis of what is really inherent, and therefore alone transmissible, in the human mind—certain instincts andimpulses, together with native varieties in capacity of memory, and so on. Recently the Mendelians have entered this field, and they have the advantage of realising the importance of dealing with real primary units. Their law seems to apply to the musical sense in man and to the brooding instinct in the hen.[36]The line of study here suggested is earnestly commended to the psychologists for theirindispensablehelp.
Eugenics and parties.—Let us once again consider the fashion in which men and women are classified to the eugenic eye. We have already realised that the most essential divisionof factis that between those who will and those who will not be parents. The most essential divisionof idealis of those who are worthy and those who are not worthy to be parents. It is the object of eugenics to make the real and the ideal divisions coincide. And let us here say with all possible force that before such classifications as these all others are trivial and nearly all others impudent. The eugenist has nothing to do with the low game called party politics: terms like socialism and so forth mean very little for him. He may or may not be a socialist, but if he be, at least he does not subscribe to what, so far as I can judge, is the first article in the creed of socialism—that all evil is of economic origin; he knows that there is much evil of germinal origin. As for conservatism and liberalism, he might have some use for these terms if the creed of conservatism were that there is no wealth but life, which must be conserved; and the creed of liberalism that life has not yet reached its zenith, and there must be liberty for all progressive variations of body and mind and thought and practice. As it is, all these things are somewhat nauseating. If and when there is a thinking party, and that party will have the eugenist, he will doubtless join it. Meanwhile he appeals to thatgreat and growing section of the community which knows party-politics for the humbug and sham that it is, and the House of Commons as a lethal chamber for souls.
Similarly, the eugenic classification of mankind cuts right across the ordinary social classification. The parasite and the parent of parasites must be branded, whether he be at the top or the bottom of the social scale. The quality of the germ-plasm which men and women carry is the supremely important thing. Its architecture is the architect of all empires. Year by year we shall more surely be able to infer the nature and the worth of the germ-plasm in particular cases, though its host may have been veneered or, on the other hand, repressed; and year by year the basal facts of heredity will furnish ever surer criteria for the theory and practice of a New Imperialism which knows, for instance, what militarism did for Rome and Napoleon for France, and which will some day sweep all the money changers out of the Temple of Life.[37]