Pedagogy is too
often a sterilizing institution, which takes young women who desire to
marry and impairs their chance of marriage.
often a sterilizing institution, which takes young women who desire to
marry and impairs their chance of marriage.
Applied Eugenics by Roswell H. Johnson and Paul Popenoe
Zone rates should be designed to effect
this dispersal of population.
FEMINISM
The word "feminism" might be supposed to characterize a movement which
sought to emphasize the distinction between woman's nature and that of
man to provide for women's special needs. It was so used in early days
on the continent. But at present in England and America it denotes a
movement which is practically the reverse of this; which seeks to
minimize the difference between the two sexes. It may be broadly
described as a movement which seeks to remove all discrimination based
on sex. It is a movement to secure recognition of an equality of the two
sexes. The feminists variously demand that woman be recognized as the
equal of man (1) biologically, (2) politically, (3) economically.
1. Whether or not woman is to be regarded as biologically equal to man
depends on how one uses the word "equal. " If it is meant that woman is
as well adapted to her own particular kind of work as is man to his, the
statement will readily be accepted. Unfortunately, feminists show a
tendency to go beyond this and to minimize differentiation in their
claims of equality. An attempt is made to show that women do not differ
materially from men in the nature of their capacity of mental or
physical achievement. Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman makes the logical
application by demanding that little girls' hair be cut short and that
they be prevented from playing with dolls in order that differences
fostered in this way be reduced.
In forming a judgment on this proposition, it must be remembered that
civilization covers not more than 10,000 years out of man's history of
half a million or more. During 490,000 out of the 500,000 years, man was
the hunter and warrior; while woman stayed at home of necessity to bear
and rear the young, to skin the prey, to prepare the food and clothing.
He must have a small knowledge of biology who could suppose that this
long history would not lead to any differentiation of the two sexes;
and the biologist knows that man and woman in some respects differ in
every cell of their bodies: that, as Jacques Loeb says, "Man and woman
are, physiologically, different species. "
But the biologist also knows that sex is a quantitative character. It is
impossible to draw a sharp line and say that those on one side are in
every respect men, and those on the other side in every respect women,
as one might draw a line between goats and sheep. Many women have a
considerable amount of "maleness"; numerous men have distinct feminine
characteristics, physical and mental. There is thus an ill-defined
"intermediate sex," as Edward Carpenter called it, whose size has been
kept down by sexual selection; or better stated there is so much
overlapping that it is a question of different averages with many
individuals of each sex beyond the average of the other sex.
A perusal of Havelock Ellis' book, _Man and Woman_, will leave little
doubt about the fact of sex differentiation, just as it will leave
little doubt that one sex is, in its way, quite as good as the other,
and that to talk of one sex as being inferior is absurd.
It is worth noting that the spread of feminism will reinforce the action
of sexual selection in keeping down the numbers of this "intermediate
sex. " In the past, women who lacked femininity or maternal instinct have
often married because the pressure of public opinion and economic
conditions made it uncomfortable for any woman to remain unmarried. And
they have had children because they could not help it, transmitting to
their daughters their own lack of maternal instinct. Under the new
regime a large proportion of such women do not marry, and accordingly
have few if any children to inherit their defects. Hence the average
level of maternal instinct of the women of America is likely steadily to
rise.
We conclude that any claim of biological equality of the two sexes must
use the word in a figurative sense, not ignoring the differentiation of
the two sexes, as extreme feminists are inclined to do. To this
differentiation we shall return later.
2. Political equality includes the demand for the vote and for the
removal of various legal restrictions, such as have sometimes prevented
a wife from disposing of her own property without the consent of her
husband or such as have made her citizenship follow that of her husband.
In the United States, these legal restrictions are rapidly being
removed, at such a rate that in some states it is now the husband who
has a right to complain of certain legal discriminations.
Equal suffrage is also gaining steadily, but its eugenic aspect is not
wholly clear. Theoretically much is to be said for it, as making use of
woman's large social sympathies and responsibilities and interest in the
family; but in the states where it has been tried, its effects have not
been all that was hoped. Beneficial results are to be expected unless an
objectionably extreme feminism finds support.
In general, the demand for political equality, in a broad sense, seems
to the eugenist to be the most praiseworthy part of the feminist
program. The abolition of those laws, which now discharge women from
positions if they marry or have children, promises to be in principle a
particularly valuable gain.
3. Economic equality is often summed up in the catch phrase "equal pay
for equal work. " If the phrase refers to jobs where women are competing
on piecework with men, no one will object to it. In practice it applies
particularly to two distinct but interlocking demands: (a) that women
should receive the same pay as men for any given occupation--as,
stenography, for example; and (b) that child-bearing should be
recognized as just as much worthy of remuneration as any occupation
which men enter, and should be paid for (by the state) on the same
basis.
At present, there is almost universally a discrimination against women
in commerce and industry. They sometimes get no more than half as much
pay as men for similar grades of employment. But there is for this one
good reason. An employer needs experienced help, and he expects a man to
remain with him and become more valuable. He is, therefore, willing to
pay more because of this anticipation. In hiring a woman, he knows that
she will probably soon leave to marry. But whatever may be the origin of
this discrimination, it is justified in the last analysis by the fact
that a man is paid as the head of a family, a woman only as an
individual who ordinarily has fewer or no dependents to support. Indeed,
it is largely this feature which, under the law of supply and demand,
has caused women to work for low wages.
It is evident that real economic equality between men and women must be
impossible, if the women are to leave their work for long periods of
time, in order to bear and rear children. It is normally impossible for
a woman to earn her living by competitive labor, at the same time that
she is bearing and rearing children. Either the doctrine of economic
equality is largely illusory, therefore, or else it must be extended to
making motherhood a salaried occupation just as much as mill work or
stenography.
The feminists have almost universally adopted the latter alternative.
They say that the woman who is capable of earning money, and who
abandons wage-earning for motherhood, ought to receive from the state as
nearly as possible what she would have received if she had not had
children; or else they declare that the expense of children should be
borne wholly by the community.
This proposal must be tested by asking whether it would tend to
strengthen and perpetuate the race or not. It is, in effect, a proposal
to have the state pay so much a head for babies. The fundamental
question is whether or not the quality of the babies would be taken into
account. Doubtless the babies of obviously feeble-minded women would be
excluded, but would it be possible for the state to pay liberally for
babies who would grow up to be productive citizens, and to refuse to pay
for babies that would doubtless grow up to be incompetents, dolts,
dullards, laggards or wasters? The scheme would work, eugenically, in
proportion as it is discriminatory and graded.
But the example of legislation in France and England, and the main trend
of popular thought in America, make it quite certain that at present,
and for many years to come, it will be impossible to have babies valued
on the basis of quality rather than mere numbers. It is sometimes
possible to get indirect measures of a eugenic nature passed, and it has
been found possible to secure the passage of direct measures which
prevent reproduction of those who are actually defective. But even the
most optimistic eugenist must feel that, short of the remote future, any
attempt to have the state grade and pay for babies on the basis of their
quality is certain to fail to pass.
The recent action of the municipality of Schonberg, Berlin, is typical.
It is now paying baby bounties at the rate of $12. 50 a head for the
first born, $2. 50 a head for all later born, and no questions asked. It
is to be feared that any success which the feminists may gain in
securing state aid for mothers in America will secure, as in Schonberg,
in England, in France, and in Australia, merely a small uniform sum.
This acts dysgenically because it is a stimulus to married people to
have large families in inverse proportion to their income, and is felt
most by those whose purpose in having children is least approvable.
The married woman of good stock ought to bear four children. For many
reasons these ought to be spaced well apart, preferably not much less
than three years. She must have oversight of these children until they
all reach adolescence. This means a period of about 12 + 13 = 25 years
during which her primary, though by no means her only, concern will be
mothercraft. It is hardly possible and certainly not desirable that she
should support herself outside of the home during this period. As state
support would pretty certainly be indiscriminate and dangerously
dysgenic, it therefore appears that the present custom of having the
father responsible for the support of the family is not only unavoidable
but desirable. If so, it is desirable to avoid reducing the wages of
married men too much by the competition of single women.
To attain this end, without working any injustice to women, it seems
wise to modify their education in general in such a way as to prepare
women for the kinds of work best adapted to her capacities and needs.
Women were long excluded from a higher education, and when they secured
it, they not unnaturally wanted the kind of education men were
receiving,--partly in order to demonstrate that they were not
intellectually inferior to men. Since this demonstration is now
complete, the continuation of duplicate curricula is uncalled for. The
coeducational colleges of the west are already turning away from the old
single curriculum and are providing for the election of more
differentiated courses for women. The separate women's colleges of the
east will doubtless do so eventually, since their own graduates and
students are increasingly discontented with the present narrow and
obsolete ideals. If the higher education of women, and much of the
elementary education, is directed toward differentiating them from men
and giving them distinct occupations (including primarily marriage and
motherhood) instead of training them so the only thing they are capable
of doing is to compete with men for men's jobs, the demand of "equal pay
for equal work" will be less difficult to reconcile with the interests
of the race. In this direction the feminists might find a large and
profitable field for the employment of their energies.
There is good ground for the feminist contention that women should be
liberally educated, that they should not be regarded by men as inferior
creatures, that they should have the opportunity of self-expression in a
richer, freer life than they have had in the past. All these gains can
be made without sacrificing any racial interests; and they must be so
made. The unrest of intelligent women is not to be lessened or removed
by educating them in the belief that they are not different from men and
setting them to work as men in the work of the world. Except where the
work is peculiarly adapted to women or there is a special individual
aptitude, such work will, for the reasons we have set forth, operate
dysgenically and therefore bring about the decadence of the race which
practices it.
The true solution is rather to be sought in recognizing the natural
differentiation of the two sexes and in emphasizing this differentiation
by education. Boys will be taught the nobility of being productive and
of establishing families; girls will have similar ideals held up to them
but will be taught to reach them in a different way, through cultivation
of the intellectual and emotional characters most useful to that
division of labor for which they are supremely adapted, as well as those
that are common to both sexes. The home must not be made a subordinate
interest, as some feminists desire, but it must be made a much richer,
deeper, more satisfying interest than it is too frequently at present.
OLD AGE PENSIONS
Pensions for aged people form an important part of the modern program of
social legislation. What their merits may be in relieving poverty will
not be discussed here. But beyond the direct effect, it is important to
inquire what indirect eugenic effect they would have, as compared with
the present system where the aged are most frequently supported by their
own children when they have failed through lack of thrift or for other
reasons to make provision for their old age.
The ordinary man, dependent on his daily work for a livelihood, can not
easily support his parents and his offspring at the same time. Aid given
to the one must be in some degree at the expense of the other. The
eugenic consequences will depend on what class of man is required to
contribute thus to parental support.
It is at once obvious that superior families will rarely encounter this
problem. The parents will, by their superior earning capacity and the
exercise of thrift and foresight, have provided for the wants of their
old age. A superior man will therefore seldom be under economic pressure
to limit the number of his own children because of the necessity of
supporting his parents. In inferior families, on the other hand, the
parents will have made no adequate provision for their old age. A son
will have to assume their support, and thus reduce the number of his own
children,--a eugenic result. With old age pensions from the state, the
economic pressure would be taken off these inferior families and the
children would thus be encouraged to marry earlier and have more
children,--a dysgenic result.
From this point of view, the most eugenic course would perhaps be to
make the support of parents by children compulsory, in cases where any
support was needed. Such a step would not handicap superior families,
but would hold back the inferior. A contributory system of old age
pensions, for which the money was provided out of the individual's
earnings, and laid aside for his old age, would also be satisfactory. A
system which led to the payment of old age pensions by the state would
be harmful.
The latter system would be evil in still another way because, as is the
case with most social legislation of this type, the funds for carrying
out such a scheme must naturally be furnished by the efficient members
of the community. This adds to their financial burdens and encourages
the young men to postpone marriage longer and to have fewer children
when they do marry,--a dysgenic result.
It appears, therefore, that old age pensions paid by the state would be
dysgenic in a number of ways, encouraging the increase of the inferior
part of the population at the expense of the superior. If old age
pensions are necessary, they should be contributory.
THE SEX HYGIENE MOVEMENT
Sexual morality is thought by some to be substantially synonymous with
eugenics or to be included by it. One of the authors has protested
previously[184] against this confusion of the meaning of the word
"eugenics. " The fallacy of believing that a campaign against sexual
immorality is a campaign for eugenics will be apparent if the
proposition is analyzed.
First, does sexual immorality increase or decrease the marriage rate of
the offenders? We conclude that it reduces the marriage rate. Although
it is true that some individuals might by sexual experience become so
awakened as to be less satisfied with a continent life, and might thus
in some cases be led to marriage, yet this is more than counterbalanced
by the following considerations:
1. The mere consciousness of loss of virginity has led in some sensitive
persons, especially women, to an unwillingness to marry from a sense of
unworthiness. This is not common, yet such cases are known.
2. The loss of reputation has prevented the marriage of the desired
mates. This is not at all uncommon.
3. Venereal infection has led to the abandonment of marriage. This is
especially common.
4. Illicit experiences may have been so disillusioning, owing to the
disaffecting nature of the consorts, that an attitude of pessimism and
misanthropy or misogyny is built up. Such an attitude prevents marriage
not only directly, but also indirectly, since persons with such an
outlook are thereby less attractive to the opposite sex.
5. A taste for sexual variety is built up so that the individual is
unwilling to commit himself to a monogamous union.
6. Occasionally, threat of blackmail by a jilted paramour prevents
marriage by the inability to escape these importunities.
We consider next the relative birth-rate of the married and the
incontinent unmarried. There can not be the slightest doubt that this is
vastly greater in the case of the married. The unmarried have not only
all the incentives of the married to keep down their birth-rate but also
the obvious and powerful incentive of concealment as well.
Passing to the relative death-rate of the illegitimate and legitimate
progeny, the actual data invariably indicate a decided advantage of the
legitimately born. The reasons are too obvious to be retailed.
Now, then, knowing that the racial contribution of the sexually moral is
greater than that of the sexually immoral, we may compare the quality of
the sexually moral and immoral, to get the evolutionary effect.
For this purpose a distinction must be made between the individual who
has been chaste till the normal time of marriage and whose sexual life
is truly monogamous, and that abnormal group who remain chaste and
celibate to an advanced age. These last are not moral in the last
analysis, if they have valuable and needed traits and are fertile,
because in the long run their failure to reproduce affects adversely the
welfare of their group. While the race suffers through the failure of
many of these individuals to contribute progeny, probably this does not
happen, so far as males are concerned, as much as might be supposed, for
such individuals are often innately defective in their instincts or, in
the case of disappointed lovers, have a badly proportioned emotional
equipment, since it leads them into a position so obviously opposed to
race interests.
But, to pass to the essential comparison, that between the sexually
immoral and the sexually moral as limited above, it is necessary first
of all to decide whether monogamy is a desirable and presumably
permanent feature of human society.
We conclude that it is:
1. Because it is spreading at the expense of polygamy even where not
favored by legal interference. The change is most evident in China.
2. In monogamy, sexual selection puts a premium on valuable traits of
character, rather than on mere personal beauty or ability to acquire
wealth; and
3. The greatest amount of happiness is produced by a monogamous system,
since in a polygamous society so many men must remain unmarried and so
many women are dissatisfied with having to share their mates with
others.
Assuming this, then adaptation to the condition of monogamous society
represents race progress. Such a race profits if those who do not comply
with its conditions make a deficient racial contribution. It follows
then that sexual immorality is eugenic in its result for the species and
that if all sexual immorality should cease, an important means of race
progress might be lost. An illustration is the case of the Negro in
America, whose failure to increase more rapidly in number is largely
attributable to the widespread sterility resulting from venereal
infection. [185] Should venereal diseases be eliminated, that race might
be expected to increase in numbers very much faster than the whites.
It may be felt by some that this position would have an immoral effect
upon youth if widely accepted. This need not be feared. On the contrary,
we believe that one of the most powerful factors in ethical culture is
pride due to the consciousness of being one who is fit and worthy.
The traditional view of sexual morality has been to ignore the
selectional aspect here discussed and to stress the alleged
deterioration of the germ-plasm by the direct action of the toxins of
syphilis. The evidence relied upon to demonstrate this action seems to
be vitiated by the possibility that there was, instead, a transmitted
infection of the progeny. This "racial poison" action, since it is so
highly improbable from analogy, can not be credited until it has been
demonstrated in cases where the parents have been indubitably cured.
Is it necessary, then, to retain sexual immorality in order to achieve
race progress? No, because it is only one of many factors contributing
to race progress. Society can mitigate this as well as alcoholism,
disease, infant mortality--all powerful selective factors--without harm,
provided increased efficiency of other selective factors is ensured,
such as the segregation of defectives, more effective sexual selection,
a better correlation of income and ability, and a more eugenic
distribution of family limitation.
TRADES UNIONISM
A dysgenic feature often found in trades unionism will easily be
understood after our discussion of the minimum wage. The union tends to
standardize wages; it tends to fix a wage in a given industry, and
demand that nearly all workers in that classification be paid that wage.
It cannot be denied that some of these workers are much more capable
than others. Artificial interference with a more exact adjustment of
wages to ability therefore penalizes the better workmen and subsidizes
the worse ones. Economic pressure is thereby put on the better men to
have fewer children, and with the worse men encourages more children,
than would be the case if their incomes more nearly represented their
real worth. Payment according to the product, with prizes and bonuses so
much opposed by the unions, is more in accord with the principles of
eugenics.
PROHIBITION
It was shown in Chapter II that the attempt to ban alcoholic beverages
on the ground of direct dysgenic effect is based on dubious evidence.
But the prohibition of the use of liquors, at least those containing
more than 5% alcohol, can be defended on indirect eugenic grounds, as
well as on the familiar grounds of pathology and economics which are
commonly cited.
1. Unless it is present to such a degree as to constitute a neurotic
taint, the desire to be stimulated is not of itself necessarily a bad
thing. This will be particularly clear if the distribution of the
responsiveness to alcoholic stimulus is recalled. Some really valuable
strains, marked by this susceptibility, may be eliminated through the
death of some individuals from debauchery and the penalization of others
in preferential mating; this would be avoided if narcotics were not
available.
2. In selection for eugenic improvement, it is desirable not to have to
select for too many traits at once. If alcoholism could, through
prohibition, be eliminated from consideration, it would just so far
simplify the problem of eugenics.
3. Drunkenness interferes with the effectiveness of means for family
limitation, so that if his alcoholism is not extreme, the drunkard's
family is sometimes larger than it would otherwise be.
On the other hand, prohibition is dysgenic and intemperance is eugenic
in their effect on the species in so far as alcoholism is correlated
with other undesirable characters and brings about the elimination of
undesirable strains. But its action is not sufficiently discriminating
nor decisive; and if the strains have many serious defects, they can
probably be dealt with better in some other, more direct way.
We conclude, then, that, on the whole, prohibition is desirable for
eugenic as well as for other reasons.
PEDAGOGICAL CELIBACY
Whether women are more efficient teachers than men, and whether single
women are more efficient teachers than married women, are disputed
questions which it is not proposed here to consider. Accepting the
present fact, that most of the school teachers in the United States are
unmarried women, it is proper to examine the eugenic consequences of
this condition.
The withdrawal of this large body of women from the career of motherhood
into a celibate career may be desirable if these women are below the
average of the rest of the women of the population in eugenic quality.
But it would hardly be possible to find enough eugenic inferiors to fill
the ranks of teachers, without getting those who are inferior in actual
ability, in patent as well as latent traits. And the idea of placing
education in the hands of such inferior persons is not to be considered.
It is, therefore, inevitable that the teachers are, on the whole,
superior persons eugenically. Their celibacy must be considered highly
detrimental to racial welfare.
But, it may be said, there is a considerable number of women so
deficient in sex feeling or emotional equipment that they are certain
never to marry; they are, nevertheless, persons of intellectual ability.
Let them be the school teachers. This solution is, however, not
acceptable. Many women of the character described undoubtedly exist, but
they are better placed in some other occupation. It is wholly
undesirable that children should be reared under a neuter influence,
which is probably too common already in education.
If women are to teach, then, it must be concluded that on eugenic
grounds preference should be given to married rather than single
teachers, and that the single ones should be encouraged to marry. This
requires (1) that considerable change be made in the education of young
women, so that they shall be fitted for motherhood rather than
exclusively for school teaching as is often the case, and (2) that
social devices be brought into play to aid them in mating--since
undoubtedly a proportion of school teachers are single from the
segregating character of their profession, not from choice, and (3)
provision for employing some women on half-time and (4) increase of the
number of male teachers in high schools.
It is, perhaps, unnecessary to mention a fifth change necessary: that
school boards must be brought to see the undesirability of employing
only unmarried women, and of discharging them, no matter how efficient,
if they marry or have children. The courts must be enabled to uphold
woman's right of marriage and motherhood, instead of, as in some cases
at present, upholding school boards in their denial of this right.
Contracts which prevent women teachers from marrying or discontinuing
their work for marriage should be illegal, and talk about the "moral
obligation" of normal school graduates to teach should be
discountenanced.
Against the proposal to employ married school teachers, two objections
are urged. It is said (1) that for most women school teaching is merely
a temporary occupation, which they take up to pass the few years until
they shall have married. To this it may be replied that the hope of
marriage too often proves illusory to the young woman who enters on the
pedagogical career, because of the lack of opportunities to meet men,
and because the nature of her work is not such as to increase her
attractiveness to men, nor her fitness for home-making.
Pedagogy is too
often a sterilizing institution, which takes young women who desire to
marry and impairs their chance of marriage.
Again it will be said (2) that married teachers would lose too much
time from their work; that their primary interests would be in their own
homes instead of in the school; that they could not teach school without
neglecting their own children. These objections fall in the realm of
education, not eugenics, and it can only be said here that the reasons
must be extraordinarily cogent, which will justify the enforcement of
celibacy on so large a body of superior young women as is now engaged in
school teaching.
The magnitude of the problem is not always realized. In 1914 the
Commissioner of education reported that there were, in the United
States, 169,929 men and 537,123 women engaged in teaching. Not less than
half a million women, therefore, are potentially affected by the
institution of pedagogical celibacy.
CHAPTER XIX
RELIGION AND EUGENICS
Man is the only animal with a religion. The conduct of the lower animals
is guided by instinct,[186] and instinct normally works for the benefit
of the species. Any action which is dictated by instinct is likely to
result in the preservation of the species, even at the expense of the
individual which acts, provided there has not been a recent change in
the environment.
But in the human species reason appears, and conduct is no longer
governed by instinct alone. A young man is impelled by instinct, for
instance, to marry. It is to the interests of the species that he marry,
and instinct therefore causes him to desire to marry and to act as he
desires. A lower animal would obey the impulse of instinct without a
moment's hesitation. Not so the man. Reason intervenes and asks, "Is
this really the best thing for you to do now? Would you not better wait
awhile and get a start in your business? Of course marriage would be
agreeable, but you must not be short-sighted. You don't want to assume a
handicap just now. " There is a corresponding reaction among the married
in respect to bearing additional children. The interests of self are
immediate and easily seen, the interests of the species are not so
pressing. In any such conflict between instinct and reason, one must
win; and if reason wins it is in some cases for the immediate benefit of
the individual but at the expense of the species' interests.
Now with reason dominant over instinct in man, there is a grave danger
that with each man consulting his own interests instead of those of the
species, some groups and even races will become exterminated. Along
with reason, therefore, it is necessary that some other forces shall
appear to control reason and give the interests of the species a chance
to be heard along with the interests of the individual.
One such force is religion. Without insisting that this is the only view
which may be taken of the origin of religion, or that this is the only
function of religion, we may yet assert that one of the useful purposes
served by religion is to cause men to adopt lines of conduct that will
be for the good of the race, although it may sacrifice the immediate
good of the individual. [187] Thus if a young Mohammedan be put in the
situation just described, he may decide that it is to his material
interest to postpone marriage. His religion then obtrudes itself, with
quotations from the Prophet to the effect that Hell is peopled with
bachelors. The young man is thereupon moved to marry, even if it does
cause some inconvenience to his business plans. Religion, reinforcing
instinct, has triumphed over reason and gained a victory for the larger
interests of the species, when they conflict with the immediate
interests of the individual.
From this point of view we may, paraphrasing Matthew Arnold, define
religion as _motivated ethics_. Ethics is a knowledge of right conduct,
religion is an agency to produce right conduct. And its working is more
like that of instinct than it is like that of reason. The irreligious
man, testing a proposition by reason alone, may decide that it is to the
interests of all concerned that he should not utter blasphemy. The
orthodox Christian never considers the pros and cons of the question; he
has the Ten Commandments and the teachings of his youth in his mind, and
he refrains from blasphemy in almost the instinctive way that he
refrains from putting his hand on a hot stove.
This chapter proposes primarily to consider how eugenics can be linked
with religion, and specifically the Christian religion; but the problem
is not a simple one, because Christianity is made of diverse elements.
Not only has it undergone some change during the last 1900 years, but it
was founded upon Judaism, which itself involved diverse elements. We
shall undertake to show that eugenics fits in well with Christianity;
but it must fit in with different elements in different ways.
We can distinguish four phases of religion:
1. Charm and taboo, or reward and punishment in the present life. The
believer in these processes thinks that certain acts possess particular
efficacies beyond those evident to his observation and reason; and that
peculiar malignities are to be expected as the consequence of certain
other acts. Perhaps no one in the memory of the tribe has ever tested
one of these acts to find whether the expected result would appear; it
is held as a matter of religious belief that the result would appear,
and the act is therefore avoided.
2. Reward and punishment in a future life after death. Whereas the first
system was supposed to bring immediate reward and punishment as the
result of certain acts, this second system postpones the result to an
after-life. There is in nature a system of reward and punishment which
everyone must have observed because it is part of the universal sequence
of cause and effect; but these two phases of religion carry the idea
still farther; they postulate rewards and punishments of a supernatural
character, over and above those which naturally occur. It is important
to note that in neither of these systems is God essentially involved.
They are in reality independent of the idea of God, since that is called
"luck" in some cases which in others is called the favor or wrath of
God. And again in some cases, one may be damned by a human curse,
although in others this curse of damnation is reserved for divine power.
3. Theistic religion. In essence this consists of the satisfaction
derived from doing that which pleases God, or "getting into harmony with
the underlying plan of the universe," as some put it. It is idealistic
and somewhat mystic. It should be distinguished from the idea of doing
or believing certain things to insure salvation, which is not
essentially theistic but belongs under (2). The true theist desires to
conform to the will of God, wholly apart from whether he will be
rewarded or punished for so doing.
4. Humanistic religion. This is a willingness to make the end of ethics
the totality of happiness of all men, or some large group of men, rather
than to judge conduct solely by its effects on some one individual. At
its highest, it is a sort of loyalty to the species.
It must be noted that most cults include more than one of these
elements--usually all of them at various stages. As a race rises in
intelligence, it tends to progress from the first two toward the last
two, but usually keeping parts of the earlier attitude, more or less
clearly expressed. And individual adherents of a religion usually have
different ideas of its scope; thus the religious ideas of many
Christians embrace all four of the above elements; others who equally
consider themselves Christians may be influenced by little more than (4)
alone, or (3) alone, or even (2) alone.
There is no reason to believe that any one of these types of religion is
the only one adapted to promoting sound ethics in all individuals, nor
that a similar culture can bring about uniformity in the near future,
since the religion of a race corresponds to some extent to the inherent
nature of the mind of its individuals. Up to a certain point, each type
of religion has a distinct appeal to a certain temperament or type of
mind. With increasing intelligence, it is probable that a religion tends
to emphasize the interests of all rather than the benefits to be derived
by one; such has been clearly the case in the history of the Christian
religion. The diverse elements of retribution, damnation, "communion
with God" and social service still exist, but in America the last-named
one is yearly being more emphasized. Emphasis upon it is the marked
characteristic of Jesus' teaching.
With this rough sketch of religious ideas in mind, the part religion can
play at the present day in advancing the eugenic interests of the race
or species may be considered. Each religion can serve eugenics just as
well as it can serve any other field of ethics, and by the very same
devices. We shall run over our four types again and note what appeals
eugenics can make to each one.
1. Reward and punishment in this life. Here the value of children,
emotionally and economically, to their parents in their later life can
be shown, and the dissatisfaction that is felt by the childless. The
emotions may be reached (as they have been reached in past centuries) by
the painting of Madonnas, the singing of lullabies, by the care of the
baby sister, by the laurel wreath of the victorious son, by the great
choruses of white-robed girls, by the happiness of the bride, and by the
sentiment of the home. Here are some of the noblest subjects for the
arts, which in the past have unconsciously served eugenics well. In a
less emotional way, a deep desire for that "terrestrial immortality"
involved in posterity should be fostered. The doctrine of the continuity
of germ-plasm might play a large part in religion. It should at least be
brought home to everyone at some point in his education. Man should have
a much stronger feeling of identity with his forebears and his progeny.
Is it not a loss to Christians that they have so much less of this
feeling than the Chinese?
It may be urged in opposition that such conceptions are dangerously
static and have thereby harmed China. But that can be avoided by
shifting the balance a little from progenitors to posterity. If people
should live more in their children than they now do, they would be not
only anxious to give them a sound heredity, but all the more eager to
improve the conditions of their children's environment by modifying
their own.
It may be objected that this sort of propaganda is indiscriminate,--that
it may further the reproduction of the inferior just as much as the
superior. We think not. Such steps appeal more to the superior type of
mind and will be little heeded by the inferior. They will be ultimately,
if not directly, discriminative.
In so far as the foregoing appeals to reason alone it is not religion.
The appeal to reason must either be emotionalized or colored with the
supernatural to be religion.
2. Reward and punishment in a future life. Here the belief in the
absolute, verbal inspiration of sacred writings and the doctrine of
salvation by faith alone are rapidly passing, and it is therefore the
easier to bring eugenics into this type of religion. Even where
salvation by faith is still held as an article of creed, it is
accompanied by the concession that he who truly believes will manifest
his belief by works. Altruism can be found in the sacred writings of
probably all religions, and the modern tendency is to make much of such
passages, in which it is easy for the eugenist to find a warrant. What
is needed here, then, is to impress upon the leaders in this field that
eugenic conduct is a "good work" and as such they may properly include
it along with other modern virtues, such as honest voting and abstinence
from graft as a key to heaven. Dysgenic conduct should equally be taught
to be an obstacle to salvation.
3. Theism. The man who is most influenced by the desire to be at one
with God naturally wants to act in accordance with God's plan. But God
being omnibeneficent, he necessarily believes that God's plan is that
which is for the best interests of His children--unless he is one of
those happily rare individuals who still believe that the end of man is
to glorify God by voice, not by means of human betterment.
This type of religion (and the other types in different degrees) is a
great motive power. It both creates energy in its adherents, and directs
that energy into definite outlets. It need only be made convincingly
evident that eugenics is truly a work of human betterment,--really the
greatest work of human betterment, and a partnership with God--to have
it taken up by this type of religion with all the enthusiasm which it
brings to its work.
4. The task of enlisting the humanist appears to be even simpler. It is
merely necessary to show him that eugenics increases the totality of
happiness of the human species. Since the keynote of his devotion is
loyalty, we might make this plea: "Can we not make every superior man or
woman ashamed to accept existence as a gift from his or her ancestors,
only to extinguish this torch instead of handing it on? "
Eugenics is in some ways akin to the movement for the conservation of
natural resources. In pioneer days a race uses up its resources without
hesitation. They seem inexhaustible. Some day it is recognized that they
are not inexhaustible, and then such members of the race as are guided
by good ethics begin to consider the interests of the future.
No system of ethics is worth the name which does not make provision for
the future. It is right here that the ethics of present-day America is
too often found wanting. As this fault is corrected, eugenics will be
more clearly seen as an integral part of ethics.
Provision for the future of the individual leads, in a very low state of
civilization, to the accumulation of wealth. Even the ants and squirrels
have so much ethics! Higher in the evolutionary scale comes provision
for the future of children; their interests lead to the foundation of
the family and, at a much later date, a man looks not only to his
immediate children but to future generations of heirs, when he entails
his estates and tries to establish a notable family line. Provision for
the future is the essence of his actions. But so far only the individual
or those related closely to him have been taken into consideration. With
a growth of altruism, man begins to recognize that he must make
provision for the future of the race; that he should apply to all
superior families the same anxiety which he feels that his children
shall not tarnish the family name by foolish marriages; that they shall
grow up strong and intelligent. This feeling interpreted by science is
eugenics, an important element of which is religion: for religion more
than any other influence leads one to look ahead, and to realize that
immediate benefits are not the greatest values that man can secure in
life,--that there is something beyond and superior to eating, drinking
and being merry.
If the criterion of ethical action is the provision it makes for the
future, then the ethics of the eugenist must rank high, for he not only
looks far to the future, but takes direct and effective steps to
safeguard the future.
Theoretically, then, there is a place for eugenics in every type of
religion. In practice, it will probably make an impression only on the
dynamic religions,--those that are actually accomplishing something.
Buddhism, for example, is perhaps too contemplative to do anything. But
Christianity, above any other, would seem to be the natural ally of the
eugenist. Christianity itself is undergoing a rapid change in ideals at
present, and it seems impossible that this evolution should leave its
adherents as ignorant of and indifferent to eugenics as they have been
in the past--even during the last generation.
Followers of other religions, as this chapter has attempted to show, can
also make eugenics a part of their respective religions. If they do not,
then it bodes ill for the future of their religion and of their race.
It is not difficult to get people to see the value of eugenics,--to give
an intellectual adhesion to it. But as eugenics sometimes calls for
seeming sacrifices, it is much more difficult to get people to _act_
eugenically. We have at numerous points in this book emphasized the
necessity of making the eugenic appeal emotional, though it is based
fundamentally on sound reasoning from facts of biology.
The great value of religion in this connection is that it provides a
driving power,[188] a source of action, which the intellect alone can
rarely furnish. Reason itself is usually an inhibitor of action. It is
the emotions that impel one to do things. The utilization of the
emotions in affecting conduct is by no means always a part of religion,
yet it is the essence of religion. Without abandoning the appeal to
reason, eugenists must make every effort to enlist potent emotional
forces on their side. There is none so strong and available as religion,
and the eugenist may turn to it with confidence of finding an effective
ally, if he can once gain its sanction.
The task, as this chapter was intended to show, is a complex one, yet we
see no insuperable obstacles to it. Eugenics may not become a part of
the Christian religion, as a whole, until scientific education is much
more widespread than at present, but it is not too soon to make a start,
by identifying the interests of the two wherever such identification is
justified and profitable.
We have endeavored to point out that as a race rises, and instinct
becomes less important in guiding the conduct of its members, religion
has often put a restraint on reason, guiding the individual in racially
profitable paths. What is to happen when religion gives way? Unbridled
selfishness too often takes the reins, and the interests of the species
are disregarded. Religion, therefore, appears to be a necessity for the
perpetuation of any race. It is essential to racial welfare that the
national religion should be of such a character as to appeal to the
emotions effectively and yet conciliate the reason. We believe that the
religion of the future is likely to acquire this character, in
proportion as it adheres to eugenics. There is no room in the civilized
world now for a dysgenic religion. Science will progress. The idea of
evolution will be more firmly grasped. Religion itself evolves, and any
religion which does not embrace eugenics will embrace death.
CHAPTER XX
EUGENICS AND EUTHENICS
Emphasis has been given, in several of the foregoing chapters, to the
desirability of inheriting a good constitution and a high degree of
vigor and disease-resistance. It has been asserted that no measures of
hygiene and sanitation can take the place of such inheritance. It is now
desirable to ascertain the limits within which good inheritance is
effective, and this may be conveniently done by a study of the lives of
a group of people who inherited exceptionally strong physical
constitutions.
The people referred to are taken from a collection of histories of long
life made by the Genealogical Record Office of Washington. [189] One
hundred individuals were picked out at random, each of whom had died at
the age of 90 or more, and with the record of each individual were
placed those of all his brothers and sisters. Any family was rejected in
which there was a record of wholly accidental death (e. g. , families of
which a member had been killed in the Civil War). The 100 families, or
more correctly fraternities or sibships, were classified by the number
of children per fraternity, as follows:
Number of Total number
Number of children per of children
fraternities fraternity in group
1 2 2
11 3 33
8 4 32
17 5 85
13 6 78
14 7 98
9 8 72
11 9 99
10 10 100
3 11 33
2 12 24
1 13 13
--- ---
100 669
The average at death of these 669 persons was 64. 7 years. The child
mortality (first 4 years of life) was 7. 5% of the total mortality, 69
families showing no deaths of that kind. The group is as a whole,
therefore, long-lived.
The problem was to measure the resemblance between brothers and sisters
in respect of longevity,--to find whether knowledge of the age at which
one died would justify a prediction as to the age at death of the
others,--or technically, it was to measure the fraternal correlation of
longevity. A zero coefficient here would show that there is no
association; that from the age at which one dies, nothing whatever can
be predicted as to the age at which the others will die. Since it is
known that heredity is a large factor in longevity, such a finding would
mean that all deaths were due to some accident which made the
inheritance of no account.
In an ordinary population it has been found that the age at death of
brothers and sisters furnishes a coefficient of correlation of the order
of . 3, which shows that heredity does determine the age at which one
shall die to considerable extent, but not absolutely. [190]
The index of correlation[191] between the lengths of life within the
fraternity in these 100 selected families, furnished a coefficient
of-. 0163? . 0672, practically zero. In other words, if the age is known at
which a member of one of these families died, whether it be one month or
100 years, nothing whatever can be predicted about the age at which his
brothers and sisters died.
Remembering that longevity is in general inherited, and that it is found
in the families of all the people of this study (since one in each
fraternity lived to be 90 or over) how is one to interpret this zero
coefficient? Evidently it means that although these people had inherited
a high degree of longevity, their deaths were brought about by causes
which prevented the heredity from getting full expression. As far as
hereditary potentialities are concerned, it can be said that all their
deaths were due to accident, using that word in a broad sense to include
all non-selective deaths by disease. If they had all been able to get
the full benefit of their heredity, it would appear that each of these
persons might have lived to 90 or more, as did the one in each family
who was recorded by the Genealogical Record Office. Genetically, these
other deaths may be spoken of as premature.
In an ordinary population, the age of death is determined to the extent
of probably 50% by heredity. In this selected long-lived population,
heredity appears not to be responsible in any measurable degree
whatsoever for the differences in age at death.
The result may be expressed in another, and perhaps more striking, way.
Of the 669 individuals studied, a hundred--namely, one child in each
family--lived beyond 90; and there were a few others who did. But some
550 of the group, though they had inherited the potentiality of reaching
the average age of 90, actually died somewhere around 60; they failed by
at least one-third to live up to the promise of their inheritance. If we
were to generalize from this single case, we would have to say that
five-sixths of the population does not make the most of its physical
inheritance.
This is certainly a fact that discourages fatalistic optimism. The man
who tells himself that, because of his magnificent inherited
constitution, he can safely take any risk, is pretty sure to take too
many risks and meet with a non-selective--i. e. , genetically, a
premature--death, when he might in the nature of things have lived
almost a generation longer.
It should be remarked that most of the members of this group seem to
have lived in a hard environment. They appear to belong predominantly to
the lower strata of society; many of them are immigrants and only a very
few of them, to judge by a cursory inspection of the records, possessed
more than moderate means. This necessitated a frugal and industrious
life which in many ways was doubtless favorable to longevity but which
may often have led to overexposure, overwork, lack of proper medical
treatment, or other causes of a non-selective death. We would not push
the conclusion too far, but we can not doubt that this investigation
shows the folly of ignoring the environment,--shows that the best
inherited constitution must have a fair chance. And what has here been
found for a physical character, would probably hold good in even greater
degree for a mental character. All that man inherits is the capacity to
develop along a certain line under the influence of proper
stimuli,--food and exercise. The object of eugenics is to see that the
inherent capacity is there. Given that, the educational system is next
needed to furnish the stimuli. The consistent eugenist is therefore an
ardent euthenist. He not only works for a better human stock but,
because he does not want to see his efforts wasted, he always works to
provide the best possible environment for this better stock.
In so far, then, as euthenics is actually providing man with more
favorable surroundings,--not with ostensibly more favorable surroundings
which, in reality, are unfavorable--there can be no antagonism between
it and eugenics. Eugenics is, in fact, a prerequisite of euthenics, for
it is only the capable and altruistic man who can contribute to social
progress; and such a man can only be produced through eugenics.
Eugenic fatalism, a blind faith in the omnipotence of heredity
regardless of the surroundings in which it is placed, has been shown by
the study of long-lived families to be unjustified. It was found that
even those who inherited exceptional longevity usually did not live as
long as their inheritance gave them the right to expect.
this dispersal of population.
FEMINISM
The word "feminism" might be supposed to characterize a movement which
sought to emphasize the distinction between woman's nature and that of
man to provide for women's special needs. It was so used in early days
on the continent. But at present in England and America it denotes a
movement which is practically the reverse of this; which seeks to
minimize the difference between the two sexes. It may be broadly
described as a movement which seeks to remove all discrimination based
on sex. It is a movement to secure recognition of an equality of the two
sexes. The feminists variously demand that woman be recognized as the
equal of man (1) biologically, (2) politically, (3) economically.
1. Whether or not woman is to be regarded as biologically equal to man
depends on how one uses the word "equal. " If it is meant that woman is
as well adapted to her own particular kind of work as is man to his, the
statement will readily be accepted. Unfortunately, feminists show a
tendency to go beyond this and to minimize differentiation in their
claims of equality. An attempt is made to show that women do not differ
materially from men in the nature of their capacity of mental or
physical achievement. Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman makes the logical
application by demanding that little girls' hair be cut short and that
they be prevented from playing with dolls in order that differences
fostered in this way be reduced.
In forming a judgment on this proposition, it must be remembered that
civilization covers not more than 10,000 years out of man's history of
half a million or more. During 490,000 out of the 500,000 years, man was
the hunter and warrior; while woman stayed at home of necessity to bear
and rear the young, to skin the prey, to prepare the food and clothing.
He must have a small knowledge of biology who could suppose that this
long history would not lead to any differentiation of the two sexes;
and the biologist knows that man and woman in some respects differ in
every cell of their bodies: that, as Jacques Loeb says, "Man and woman
are, physiologically, different species. "
But the biologist also knows that sex is a quantitative character. It is
impossible to draw a sharp line and say that those on one side are in
every respect men, and those on the other side in every respect women,
as one might draw a line between goats and sheep. Many women have a
considerable amount of "maleness"; numerous men have distinct feminine
characteristics, physical and mental. There is thus an ill-defined
"intermediate sex," as Edward Carpenter called it, whose size has been
kept down by sexual selection; or better stated there is so much
overlapping that it is a question of different averages with many
individuals of each sex beyond the average of the other sex.
A perusal of Havelock Ellis' book, _Man and Woman_, will leave little
doubt about the fact of sex differentiation, just as it will leave
little doubt that one sex is, in its way, quite as good as the other,
and that to talk of one sex as being inferior is absurd.
It is worth noting that the spread of feminism will reinforce the action
of sexual selection in keeping down the numbers of this "intermediate
sex. " In the past, women who lacked femininity or maternal instinct have
often married because the pressure of public opinion and economic
conditions made it uncomfortable for any woman to remain unmarried. And
they have had children because they could not help it, transmitting to
their daughters their own lack of maternal instinct. Under the new
regime a large proportion of such women do not marry, and accordingly
have few if any children to inherit their defects. Hence the average
level of maternal instinct of the women of America is likely steadily to
rise.
We conclude that any claim of biological equality of the two sexes must
use the word in a figurative sense, not ignoring the differentiation of
the two sexes, as extreme feminists are inclined to do. To this
differentiation we shall return later.
2. Political equality includes the demand for the vote and for the
removal of various legal restrictions, such as have sometimes prevented
a wife from disposing of her own property without the consent of her
husband or such as have made her citizenship follow that of her husband.
In the United States, these legal restrictions are rapidly being
removed, at such a rate that in some states it is now the husband who
has a right to complain of certain legal discriminations.
Equal suffrage is also gaining steadily, but its eugenic aspect is not
wholly clear. Theoretically much is to be said for it, as making use of
woman's large social sympathies and responsibilities and interest in the
family; but in the states where it has been tried, its effects have not
been all that was hoped. Beneficial results are to be expected unless an
objectionably extreme feminism finds support.
In general, the demand for political equality, in a broad sense, seems
to the eugenist to be the most praiseworthy part of the feminist
program. The abolition of those laws, which now discharge women from
positions if they marry or have children, promises to be in principle a
particularly valuable gain.
3. Economic equality is often summed up in the catch phrase "equal pay
for equal work. " If the phrase refers to jobs where women are competing
on piecework with men, no one will object to it. In practice it applies
particularly to two distinct but interlocking demands: (a) that women
should receive the same pay as men for any given occupation--as,
stenography, for example; and (b) that child-bearing should be
recognized as just as much worthy of remuneration as any occupation
which men enter, and should be paid for (by the state) on the same
basis.
At present, there is almost universally a discrimination against women
in commerce and industry. They sometimes get no more than half as much
pay as men for similar grades of employment. But there is for this one
good reason. An employer needs experienced help, and he expects a man to
remain with him and become more valuable. He is, therefore, willing to
pay more because of this anticipation. In hiring a woman, he knows that
she will probably soon leave to marry. But whatever may be the origin of
this discrimination, it is justified in the last analysis by the fact
that a man is paid as the head of a family, a woman only as an
individual who ordinarily has fewer or no dependents to support. Indeed,
it is largely this feature which, under the law of supply and demand,
has caused women to work for low wages.
It is evident that real economic equality between men and women must be
impossible, if the women are to leave their work for long periods of
time, in order to bear and rear children. It is normally impossible for
a woman to earn her living by competitive labor, at the same time that
she is bearing and rearing children. Either the doctrine of economic
equality is largely illusory, therefore, or else it must be extended to
making motherhood a salaried occupation just as much as mill work or
stenography.
The feminists have almost universally adopted the latter alternative.
They say that the woman who is capable of earning money, and who
abandons wage-earning for motherhood, ought to receive from the state as
nearly as possible what she would have received if she had not had
children; or else they declare that the expense of children should be
borne wholly by the community.
This proposal must be tested by asking whether it would tend to
strengthen and perpetuate the race or not. It is, in effect, a proposal
to have the state pay so much a head for babies. The fundamental
question is whether or not the quality of the babies would be taken into
account. Doubtless the babies of obviously feeble-minded women would be
excluded, but would it be possible for the state to pay liberally for
babies who would grow up to be productive citizens, and to refuse to pay
for babies that would doubtless grow up to be incompetents, dolts,
dullards, laggards or wasters? The scheme would work, eugenically, in
proportion as it is discriminatory and graded.
But the example of legislation in France and England, and the main trend
of popular thought in America, make it quite certain that at present,
and for many years to come, it will be impossible to have babies valued
on the basis of quality rather than mere numbers. It is sometimes
possible to get indirect measures of a eugenic nature passed, and it has
been found possible to secure the passage of direct measures which
prevent reproduction of those who are actually defective. But even the
most optimistic eugenist must feel that, short of the remote future, any
attempt to have the state grade and pay for babies on the basis of their
quality is certain to fail to pass.
The recent action of the municipality of Schonberg, Berlin, is typical.
It is now paying baby bounties at the rate of $12. 50 a head for the
first born, $2. 50 a head for all later born, and no questions asked. It
is to be feared that any success which the feminists may gain in
securing state aid for mothers in America will secure, as in Schonberg,
in England, in France, and in Australia, merely a small uniform sum.
This acts dysgenically because it is a stimulus to married people to
have large families in inverse proportion to their income, and is felt
most by those whose purpose in having children is least approvable.
The married woman of good stock ought to bear four children. For many
reasons these ought to be spaced well apart, preferably not much less
than three years. She must have oversight of these children until they
all reach adolescence. This means a period of about 12 + 13 = 25 years
during which her primary, though by no means her only, concern will be
mothercraft. It is hardly possible and certainly not desirable that she
should support herself outside of the home during this period. As state
support would pretty certainly be indiscriminate and dangerously
dysgenic, it therefore appears that the present custom of having the
father responsible for the support of the family is not only unavoidable
but desirable. If so, it is desirable to avoid reducing the wages of
married men too much by the competition of single women.
To attain this end, without working any injustice to women, it seems
wise to modify their education in general in such a way as to prepare
women for the kinds of work best adapted to her capacities and needs.
Women were long excluded from a higher education, and when they secured
it, they not unnaturally wanted the kind of education men were
receiving,--partly in order to demonstrate that they were not
intellectually inferior to men. Since this demonstration is now
complete, the continuation of duplicate curricula is uncalled for. The
coeducational colleges of the west are already turning away from the old
single curriculum and are providing for the election of more
differentiated courses for women. The separate women's colleges of the
east will doubtless do so eventually, since their own graduates and
students are increasingly discontented with the present narrow and
obsolete ideals. If the higher education of women, and much of the
elementary education, is directed toward differentiating them from men
and giving them distinct occupations (including primarily marriage and
motherhood) instead of training them so the only thing they are capable
of doing is to compete with men for men's jobs, the demand of "equal pay
for equal work" will be less difficult to reconcile with the interests
of the race. In this direction the feminists might find a large and
profitable field for the employment of their energies.
There is good ground for the feminist contention that women should be
liberally educated, that they should not be regarded by men as inferior
creatures, that they should have the opportunity of self-expression in a
richer, freer life than they have had in the past. All these gains can
be made without sacrificing any racial interests; and they must be so
made. The unrest of intelligent women is not to be lessened or removed
by educating them in the belief that they are not different from men and
setting them to work as men in the work of the world. Except where the
work is peculiarly adapted to women or there is a special individual
aptitude, such work will, for the reasons we have set forth, operate
dysgenically and therefore bring about the decadence of the race which
practices it.
The true solution is rather to be sought in recognizing the natural
differentiation of the two sexes and in emphasizing this differentiation
by education. Boys will be taught the nobility of being productive and
of establishing families; girls will have similar ideals held up to them
but will be taught to reach them in a different way, through cultivation
of the intellectual and emotional characters most useful to that
division of labor for which they are supremely adapted, as well as those
that are common to both sexes. The home must not be made a subordinate
interest, as some feminists desire, but it must be made a much richer,
deeper, more satisfying interest than it is too frequently at present.
OLD AGE PENSIONS
Pensions for aged people form an important part of the modern program of
social legislation. What their merits may be in relieving poverty will
not be discussed here. But beyond the direct effect, it is important to
inquire what indirect eugenic effect they would have, as compared with
the present system where the aged are most frequently supported by their
own children when they have failed through lack of thrift or for other
reasons to make provision for their old age.
The ordinary man, dependent on his daily work for a livelihood, can not
easily support his parents and his offspring at the same time. Aid given
to the one must be in some degree at the expense of the other. The
eugenic consequences will depend on what class of man is required to
contribute thus to parental support.
It is at once obvious that superior families will rarely encounter this
problem. The parents will, by their superior earning capacity and the
exercise of thrift and foresight, have provided for the wants of their
old age. A superior man will therefore seldom be under economic pressure
to limit the number of his own children because of the necessity of
supporting his parents. In inferior families, on the other hand, the
parents will have made no adequate provision for their old age. A son
will have to assume their support, and thus reduce the number of his own
children,--a eugenic result. With old age pensions from the state, the
economic pressure would be taken off these inferior families and the
children would thus be encouraged to marry earlier and have more
children,--a dysgenic result.
From this point of view, the most eugenic course would perhaps be to
make the support of parents by children compulsory, in cases where any
support was needed. Such a step would not handicap superior families,
but would hold back the inferior. A contributory system of old age
pensions, for which the money was provided out of the individual's
earnings, and laid aside for his old age, would also be satisfactory. A
system which led to the payment of old age pensions by the state would
be harmful.
The latter system would be evil in still another way because, as is the
case with most social legislation of this type, the funds for carrying
out such a scheme must naturally be furnished by the efficient members
of the community. This adds to their financial burdens and encourages
the young men to postpone marriage longer and to have fewer children
when they do marry,--a dysgenic result.
It appears, therefore, that old age pensions paid by the state would be
dysgenic in a number of ways, encouraging the increase of the inferior
part of the population at the expense of the superior. If old age
pensions are necessary, they should be contributory.
THE SEX HYGIENE MOVEMENT
Sexual morality is thought by some to be substantially synonymous with
eugenics or to be included by it. One of the authors has protested
previously[184] against this confusion of the meaning of the word
"eugenics. " The fallacy of believing that a campaign against sexual
immorality is a campaign for eugenics will be apparent if the
proposition is analyzed.
First, does sexual immorality increase or decrease the marriage rate of
the offenders? We conclude that it reduces the marriage rate. Although
it is true that some individuals might by sexual experience become so
awakened as to be less satisfied with a continent life, and might thus
in some cases be led to marriage, yet this is more than counterbalanced
by the following considerations:
1. The mere consciousness of loss of virginity has led in some sensitive
persons, especially women, to an unwillingness to marry from a sense of
unworthiness. This is not common, yet such cases are known.
2. The loss of reputation has prevented the marriage of the desired
mates. This is not at all uncommon.
3. Venereal infection has led to the abandonment of marriage. This is
especially common.
4. Illicit experiences may have been so disillusioning, owing to the
disaffecting nature of the consorts, that an attitude of pessimism and
misanthropy or misogyny is built up. Such an attitude prevents marriage
not only directly, but also indirectly, since persons with such an
outlook are thereby less attractive to the opposite sex.
5. A taste for sexual variety is built up so that the individual is
unwilling to commit himself to a monogamous union.
6. Occasionally, threat of blackmail by a jilted paramour prevents
marriage by the inability to escape these importunities.
We consider next the relative birth-rate of the married and the
incontinent unmarried. There can not be the slightest doubt that this is
vastly greater in the case of the married. The unmarried have not only
all the incentives of the married to keep down their birth-rate but also
the obvious and powerful incentive of concealment as well.
Passing to the relative death-rate of the illegitimate and legitimate
progeny, the actual data invariably indicate a decided advantage of the
legitimately born. The reasons are too obvious to be retailed.
Now, then, knowing that the racial contribution of the sexually moral is
greater than that of the sexually immoral, we may compare the quality of
the sexually moral and immoral, to get the evolutionary effect.
For this purpose a distinction must be made between the individual who
has been chaste till the normal time of marriage and whose sexual life
is truly monogamous, and that abnormal group who remain chaste and
celibate to an advanced age. These last are not moral in the last
analysis, if they have valuable and needed traits and are fertile,
because in the long run their failure to reproduce affects adversely the
welfare of their group. While the race suffers through the failure of
many of these individuals to contribute progeny, probably this does not
happen, so far as males are concerned, as much as might be supposed, for
such individuals are often innately defective in their instincts or, in
the case of disappointed lovers, have a badly proportioned emotional
equipment, since it leads them into a position so obviously opposed to
race interests.
But, to pass to the essential comparison, that between the sexually
immoral and the sexually moral as limited above, it is necessary first
of all to decide whether monogamy is a desirable and presumably
permanent feature of human society.
We conclude that it is:
1. Because it is spreading at the expense of polygamy even where not
favored by legal interference. The change is most evident in China.
2. In monogamy, sexual selection puts a premium on valuable traits of
character, rather than on mere personal beauty or ability to acquire
wealth; and
3. The greatest amount of happiness is produced by a monogamous system,
since in a polygamous society so many men must remain unmarried and so
many women are dissatisfied with having to share their mates with
others.
Assuming this, then adaptation to the condition of monogamous society
represents race progress. Such a race profits if those who do not comply
with its conditions make a deficient racial contribution. It follows
then that sexual immorality is eugenic in its result for the species and
that if all sexual immorality should cease, an important means of race
progress might be lost. An illustration is the case of the Negro in
America, whose failure to increase more rapidly in number is largely
attributable to the widespread sterility resulting from venereal
infection. [185] Should venereal diseases be eliminated, that race might
be expected to increase in numbers very much faster than the whites.
It may be felt by some that this position would have an immoral effect
upon youth if widely accepted. This need not be feared. On the contrary,
we believe that one of the most powerful factors in ethical culture is
pride due to the consciousness of being one who is fit and worthy.
The traditional view of sexual morality has been to ignore the
selectional aspect here discussed and to stress the alleged
deterioration of the germ-plasm by the direct action of the toxins of
syphilis. The evidence relied upon to demonstrate this action seems to
be vitiated by the possibility that there was, instead, a transmitted
infection of the progeny. This "racial poison" action, since it is so
highly improbable from analogy, can not be credited until it has been
demonstrated in cases where the parents have been indubitably cured.
Is it necessary, then, to retain sexual immorality in order to achieve
race progress? No, because it is only one of many factors contributing
to race progress. Society can mitigate this as well as alcoholism,
disease, infant mortality--all powerful selective factors--without harm,
provided increased efficiency of other selective factors is ensured,
such as the segregation of defectives, more effective sexual selection,
a better correlation of income and ability, and a more eugenic
distribution of family limitation.
TRADES UNIONISM
A dysgenic feature often found in trades unionism will easily be
understood after our discussion of the minimum wage. The union tends to
standardize wages; it tends to fix a wage in a given industry, and
demand that nearly all workers in that classification be paid that wage.
It cannot be denied that some of these workers are much more capable
than others. Artificial interference with a more exact adjustment of
wages to ability therefore penalizes the better workmen and subsidizes
the worse ones. Economic pressure is thereby put on the better men to
have fewer children, and with the worse men encourages more children,
than would be the case if their incomes more nearly represented their
real worth. Payment according to the product, with prizes and bonuses so
much opposed by the unions, is more in accord with the principles of
eugenics.
PROHIBITION
It was shown in Chapter II that the attempt to ban alcoholic beverages
on the ground of direct dysgenic effect is based on dubious evidence.
But the prohibition of the use of liquors, at least those containing
more than 5% alcohol, can be defended on indirect eugenic grounds, as
well as on the familiar grounds of pathology and economics which are
commonly cited.
1. Unless it is present to such a degree as to constitute a neurotic
taint, the desire to be stimulated is not of itself necessarily a bad
thing. This will be particularly clear if the distribution of the
responsiveness to alcoholic stimulus is recalled. Some really valuable
strains, marked by this susceptibility, may be eliminated through the
death of some individuals from debauchery and the penalization of others
in preferential mating; this would be avoided if narcotics were not
available.
2. In selection for eugenic improvement, it is desirable not to have to
select for too many traits at once. If alcoholism could, through
prohibition, be eliminated from consideration, it would just so far
simplify the problem of eugenics.
3. Drunkenness interferes with the effectiveness of means for family
limitation, so that if his alcoholism is not extreme, the drunkard's
family is sometimes larger than it would otherwise be.
On the other hand, prohibition is dysgenic and intemperance is eugenic
in their effect on the species in so far as alcoholism is correlated
with other undesirable characters and brings about the elimination of
undesirable strains. But its action is not sufficiently discriminating
nor decisive; and if the strains have many serious defects, they can
probably be dealt with better in some other, more direct way.
We conclude, then, that, on the whole, prohibition is desirable for
eugenic as well as for other reasons.
PEDAGOGICAL CELIBACY
Whether women are more efficient teachers than men, and whether single
women are more efficient teachers than married women, are disputed
questions which it is not proposed here to consider. Accepting the
present fact, that most of the school teachers in the United States are
unmarried women, it is proper to examine the eugenic consequences of
this condition.
The withdrawal of this large body of women from the career of motherhood
into a celibate career may be desirable if these women are below the
average of the rest of the women of the population in eugenic quality.
But it would hardly be possible to find enough eugenic inferiors to fill
the ranks of teachers, without getting those who are inferior in actual
ability, in patent as well as latent traits. And the idea of placing
education in the hands of such inferior persons is not to be considered.
It is, therefore, inevitable that the teachers are, on the whole,
superior persons eugenically. Their celibacy must be considered highly
detrimental to racial welfare.
But, it may be said, there is a considerable number of women so
deficient in sex feeling or emotional equipment that they are certain
never to marry; they are, nevertheless, persons of intellectual ability.
Let them be the school teachers. This solution is, however, not
acceptable. Many women of the character described undoubtedly exist, but
they are better placed in some other occupation. It is wholly
undesirable that children should be reared under a neuter influence,
which is probably too common already in education.
If women are to teach, then, it must be concluded that on eugenic
grounds preference should be given to married rather than single
teachers, and that the single ones should be encouraged to marry. This
requires (1) that considerable change be made in the education of young
women, so that they shall be fitted for motherhood rather than
exclusively for school teaching as is often the case, and (2) that
social devices be brought into play to aid them in mating--since
undoubtedly a proportion of school teachers are single from the
segregating character of their profession, not from choice, and (3)
provision for employing some women on half-time and (4) increase of the
number of male teachers in high schools.
It is, perhaps, unnecessary to mention a fifth change necessary: that
school boards must be brought to see the undesirability of employing
only unmarried women, and of discharging them, no matter how efficient,
if they marry or have children. The courts must be enabled to uphold
woman's right of marriage and motherhood, instead of, as in some cases
at present, upholding school boards in their denial of this right.
Contracts which prevent women teachers from marrying or discontinuing
their work for marriage should be illegal, and talk about the "moral
obligation" of normal school graduates to teach should be
discountenanced.
Against the proposal to employ married school teachers, two objections
are urged. It is said (1) that for most women school teaching is merely
a temporary occupation, which they take up to pass the few years until
they shall have married. To this it may be replied that the hope of
marriage too often proves illusory to the young woman who enters on the
pedagogical career, because of the lack of opportunities to meet men,
and because the nature of her work is not such as to increase her
attractiveness to men, nor her fitness for home-making.
Pedagogy is too
often a sterilizing institution, which takes young women who desire to
marry and impairs their chance of marriage.
Again it will be said (2) that married teachers would lose too much
time from their work; that their primary interests would be in their own
homes instead of in the school; that they could not teach school without
neglecting their own children. These objections fall in the realm of
education, not eugenics, and it can only be said here that the reasons
must be extraordinarily cogent, which will justify the enforcement of
celibacy on so large a body of superior young women as is now engaged in
school teaching.
The magnitude of the problem is not always realized. In 1914 the
Commissioner of education reported that there were, in the United
States, 169,929 men and 537,123 women engaged in teaching. Not less than
half a million women, therefore, are potentially affected by the
institution of pedagogical celibacy.
CHAPTER XIX
RELIGION AND EUGENICS
Man is the only animal with a religion. The conduct of the lower animals
is guided by instinct,[186] and instinct normally works for the benefit
of the species. Any action which is dictated by instinct is likely to
result in the preservation of the species, even at the expense of the
individual which acts, provided there has not been a recent change in
the environment.
But in the human species reason appears, and conduct is no longer
governed by instinct alone. A young man is impelled by instinct, for
instance, to marry. It is to the interests of the species that he marry,
and instinct therefore causes him to desire to marry and to act as he
desires. A lower animal would obey the impulse of instinct without a
moment's hesitation. Not so the man. Reason intervenes and asks, "Is
this really the best thing for you to do now? Would you not better wait
awhile and get a start in your business? Of course marriage would be
agreeable, but you must not be short-sighted. You don't want to assume a
handicap just now. " There is a corresponding reaction among the married
in respect to bearing additional children. The interests of self are
immediate and easily seen, the interests of the species are not so
pressing. In any such conflict between instinct and reason, one must
win; and if reason wins it is in some cases for the immediate benefit of
the individual but at the expense of the species' interests.
Now with reason dominant over instinct in man, there is a grave danger
that with each man consulting his own interests instead of those of the
species, some groups and even races will become exterminated. Along
with reason, therefore, it is necessary that some other forces shall
appear to control reason and give the interests of the species a chance
to be heard along with the interests of the individual.
One such force is religion. Without insisting that this is the only view
which may be taken of the origin of religion, or that this is the only
function of religion, we may yet assert that one of the useful purposes
served by religion is to cause men to adopt lines of conduct that will
be for the good of the race, although it may sacrifice the immediate
good of the individual. [187] Thus if a young Mohammedan be put in the
situation just described, he may decide that it is to his material
interest to postpone marriage. His religion then obtrudes itself, with
quotations from the Prophet to the effect that Hell is peopled with
bachelors. The young man is thereupon moved to marry, even if it does
cause some inconvenience to his business plans. Religion, reinforcing
instinct, has triumphed over reason and gained a victory for the larger
interests of the species, when they conflict with the immediate
interests of the individual.
From this point of view we may, paraphrasing Matthew Arnold, define
religion as _motivated ethics_. Ethics is a knowledge of right conduct,
religion is an agency to produce right conduct. And its working is more
like that of instinct than it is like that of reason. The irreligious
man, testing a proposition by reason alone, may decide that it is to the
interests of all concerned that he should not utter blasphemy. The
orthodox Christian never considers the pros and cons of the question; he
has the Ten Commandments and the teachings of his youth in his mind, and
he refrains from blasphemy in almost the instinctive way that he
refrains from putting his hand on a hot stove.
This chapter proposes primarily to consider how eugenics can be linked
with religion, and specifically the Christian religion; but the problem
is not a simple one, because Christianity is made of diverse elements.
Not only has it undergone some change during the last 1900 years, but it
was founded upon Judaism, which itself involved diverse elements. We
shall undertake to show that eugenics fits in well with Christianity;
but it must fit in with different elements in different ways.
We can distinguish four phases of religion:
1. Charm and taboo, or reward and punishment in the present life. The
believer in these processes thinks that certain acts possess particular
efficacies beyond those evident to his observation and reason; and that
peculiar malignities are to be expected as the consequence of certain
other acts. Perhaps no one in the memory of the tribe has ever tested
one of these acts to find whether the expected result would appear; it
is held as a matter of religious belief that the result would appear,
and the act is therefore avoided.
2. Reward and punishment in a future life after death. Whereas the first
system was supposed to bring immediate reward and punishment as the
result of certain acts, this second system postpones the result to an
after-life. There is in nature a system of reward and punishment which
everyone must have observed because it is part of the universal sequence
of cause and effect; but these two phases of religion carry the idea
still farther; they postulate rewards and punishments of a supernatural
character, over and above those which naturally occur. It is important
to note that in neither of these systems is God essentially involved.
They are in reality independent of the idea of God, since that is called
"luck" in some cases which in others is called the favor or wrath of
God. And again in some cases, one may be damned by a human curse,
although in others this curse of damnation is reserved for divine power.
3. Theistic religion. In essence this consists of the satisfaction
derived from doing that which pleases God, or "getting into harmony with
the underlying plan of the universe," as some put it. It is idealistic
and somewhat mystic. It should be distinguished from the idea of doing
or believing certain things to insure salvation, which is not
essentially theistic but belongs under (2). The true theist desires to
conform to the will of God, wholly apart from whether he will be
rewarded or punished for so doing.
4. Humanistic religion. This is a willingness to make the end of ethics
the totality of happiness of all men, or some large group of men, rather
than to judge conduct solely by its effects on some one individual. At
its highest, it is a sort of loyalty to the species.
It must be noted that most cults include more than one of these
elements--usually all of them at various stages. As a race rises in
intelligence, it tends to progress from the first two toward the last
two, but usually keeping parts of the earlier attitude, more or less
clearly expressed. And individual adherents of a religion usually have
different ideas of its scope; thus the religious ideas of many
Christians embrace all four of the above elements; others who equally
consider themselves Christians may be influenced by little more than (4)
alone, or (3) alone, or even (2) alone.
There is no reason to believe that any one of these types of religion is
the only one adapted to promoting sound ethics in all individuals, nor
that a similar culture can bring about uniformity in the near future,
since the religion of a race corresponds to some extent to the inherent
nature of the mind of its individuals. Up to a certain point, each type
of religion has a distinct appeal to a certain temperament or type of
mind. With increasing intelligence, it is probable that a religion tends
to emphasize the interests of all rather than the benefits to be derived
by one; such has been clearly the case in the history of the Christian
religion. The diverse elements of retribution, damnation, "communion
with God" and social service still exist, but in America the last-named
one is yearly being more emphasized. Emphasis upon it is the marked
characteristic of Jesus' teaching.
With this rough sketch of religious ideas in mind, the part religion can
play at the present day in advancing the eugenic interests of the race
or species may be considered. Each religion can serve eugenics just as
well as it can serve any other field of ethics, and by the very same
devices. We shall run over our four types again and note what appeals
eugenics can make to each one.
1. Reward and punishment in this life. Here the value of children,
emotionally and economically, to their parents in their later life can
be shown, and the dissatisfaction that is felt by the childless. The
emotions may be reached (as they have been reached in past centuries) by
the painting of Madonnas, the singing of lullabies, by the care of the
baby sister, by the laurel wreath of the victorious son, by the great
choruses of white-robed girls, by the happiness of the bride, and by the
sentiment of the home. Here are some of the noblest subjects for the
arts, which in the past have unconsciously served eugenics well. In a
less emotional way, a deep desire for that "terrestrial immortality"
involved in posterity should be fostered. The doctrine of the continuity
of germ-plasm might play a large part in religion. It should at least be
brought home to everyone at some point in his education. Man should have
a much stronger feeling of identity with his forebears and his progeny.
Is it not a loss to Christians that they have so much less of this
feeling than the Chinese?
It may be urged in opposition that such conceptions are dangerously
static and have thereby harmed China. But that can be avoided by
shifting the balance a little from progenitors to posterity. If people
should live more in their children than they now do, they would be not
only anxious to give them a sound heredity, but all the more eager to
improve the conditions of their children's environment by modifying
their own.
It may be objected that this sort of propaganda is indiscriminate,--that
it may further the reproduction of the inferior just as much as the
superior. We think not. Such steps appeal more to the superior type of
mind and will be little heeded by the inferior. They will be ultimately,
if not directly, discriminative.
In so far as the foregoing appeals to reason alone it is not religion.
The appeal to reason must either be emotionalized or colored with the
supernatural to be religion.
2. Reward and punishment in a future life. Here the belief in the
absolute, verbal inspiration of sacred writings and the doctrine of
salvation by faith alone are rapidly passing, and it is therefore the
easier to bring eugenics into this type of religion. Even where
salvation by faith is still held as an article of creed, it is
accompanied by the concession that he who truly believes will manifest
his belief by works. Altruism can be found in the sacred writings of
probably all religions, and the modern tendency is to make much of such
passages, in which it is easy for the eugenist to find a warrant. What
is needed here, then, is to impress upon the leaders in this field that
eugenic conduct is a "good work" and as such they may properly include
it along with other modern virtues, such as honest voting and abstinence
from graft as a key to heaven. Dysgenic conduct should equally be taught
to be an obstacle to salvation.
3. Theism. The man who is most influenced by the desire to be at one
with God naturally wants to act in accordance with God's plan. But God
being omnibeneficent, he necessarily believes that God's plan is that
which is for the best interests of His children--unless he is one of
those happily rare individuals who still believe that the end of man is
to glorify God by voice, not by means of human betterment.
This type of religion (and the other types in different degrees) is a
great motive power. It both creates energy in its adherents, and directs
that energy into definite outlets. It need only be made convincingly
evident that eugenics is truly a work of human betterment,--really the
greatest work of human betterment, and a partnership with God--to have
it taken up by this type of religion with all the enthusiasm which it
brings to its work.
4. The task of enlisting the humanist appears to be even simpler. It is
merely necessary to show him that eugenics increases the totality of
happiness of the human species. Since the keynote of his devotion is
loyalty, we might make this plea: "Can we not make every superior man or
woman ashamed to accept existence as a gift from his or her ancestors,
only to extinguish this torch instead of handing it on? "
Eugenics is in some ways akin to the movement for the conservation of
natural resources. In pioneer days a race uses up its resources without
hesitation. They seem inexhaustible. Some day it is recognized that they
are not inexhaustible, and then such members of the race as are guided
by good ethics begin to consider the interests of the future.
No system of ethics is worth the name which does not make provision for
the future. It is right here that the ethics of present-day America is
too often found wanting. As this fault is corrected, eugenics will be
more clearly seen as an integral part of ethics.
Provision for the future of the individual leads, in a very low state of
civilization, to the accumulation of wealth. Even the ants and squirrels
have so much ethics! Higher in the evolutionary scale comes provision
for the future of children; their interests lead to the foundation of
the family and, at a much later date, a man looks not only to his
immediate children but to future generations of heirs, when he entails
his estates and tries to establish a notable family line. Provision for
the future is the essence of his actions. But so far only the individual
or those related closely to him have been taken into consideration. With
a growth of altruism, man begins to recognize that he must make
provision for the future of the race; that he should apply to all
superior families the same anxiety which he feels that his children
shall not tarnish the family name by foolish marriages; that they shall
grow up strong and intelligent. This feeling interpreted by science is
eugenics, an important element of which is religion: for religion more
than any other influence leads one to look ahead, and to realize that
immediate benefits are not the greatest values that man can secure in
life,--that there is something beyond and superior to eating, drinking
and being merry.
If the criterion of ethical action is the provision it makes for the
future, then the ethics of the eugenist must rank high, for he not only
looks far to the future, but takes direct and effective steps to
safeguard the future.
Theoretically, then, there is a place for eugenics in every type of
religion. In practice, it will probably make an impression only on the
dynamic religions,--those that are actually accomplishing something.
Buddhism, for example, is perhaps too contemplative to do anything. But
Christianity, above any other, would seem to be the natural ally of the
eugenist. Christianity itself is undergoing a rapid change in ideals at
present, and it seems impossible that this evolution should leave its
adherents as ignorant of and indifferent to eugenics as they have been
in the past--even during the last generation.
Followers of other religions, as this chapter has attempted to show, can
also make eugenics a part of their respective religions. If they do not,
then it bodes ill for the future of their religion and of their race.
It is not difficult to get people to see the value of eugenics,--to give
an intellectual adhesion to it. But as eugenics sometimes calls for
seeming sacrifices, it is much more difficult to get people to _act_
eugenically. We have at numerous points in this book emphasized the
necessity of making the eugenic appeal emotional, though it is based
fundamentally on sound reasoning from facts of biology.
The great value of religion in this connection is that it provides a
driving power,[188] a source of action, which the intellect alone can
rarely furnish. Reason itself is usually an inhibitor of action. It is
the emotions that impel one to do things. The utilization of the
emotions in affecting conduct is by no means always a part of religion,
yet it is the essence of religion. Without abandoning the appeal to
reason, eugenists must make every effort to enlist potent emotional
forces on their side. There is none so strong and available as religion,
and the eugenist may turn to it with confidence of finding an effective
ally, if he can once gain its sanction.
The task, as this chapter was intended to show, is a complex one, yet we
see no insuperable obstacles to it. Eugenics may not become a part of
the Christian religion, as a whole, until scientific education is much
more widespread than at present, but it is not too soon to make a start,
by identifying the interests of the two wherever such identification is
justified and profitable.
We have endeavored to point out that as a race rises, and instinct
becomes less important in guiding the conduct of its members, religion
has often put a restraint on reason, guiding the individual in racially
profitable paths. What is to happen when religion gives way? Unbridled
selfishness too often takes the reins, and the interests of the species
are disregarded. Religion, therefore, appears to be a necessity for the
perpetuation of any race. It is essential to racial welfare that the
national religion should be of such a character as to appeal to the
emotions effectively and yet conciliate the reason. We believe that the
religion of the future is likely to acquire this character, in
proportion as it adheres to eugenics. There is no room in the civilized
world now for a dysgenic religion. Science will progress. The idea of
evolution will be more firmly grasped. Religion itself evolves, and any
religion which does not embrace eugenics will embrace death.
CHAPTER XX
EUGENICS AND EUTHENICS
Emphasis has been given, in several of the foregoing chapters, to the
desirability of inheriting a good constitution and a high degree of
vigor and disease-resistance. It has been asserted that no measures of
hygiene and sanitation can take the place of such inheritance. It is now
desirable to ascertain the limits within which good inheritance is
effective, and this may be conveniently done by a study of the lives of
a group of people who inherited exceptionally strong physical
constitutions.
The people referred to are taken from a collection of histories of long
life made by the Genealogical Record Office of Washington. [189] One
hundred individuals were picked out at random, each of whom had died at
the age of 90 or more, and with the record of each individual were
placed those of all his brothers and sisters. Any family was rejected in
which there was a record of wholly accidental death (e. g. , families of
which a member had been killed in the Civil War). The 100 families, or
more correctly fraternities or sibships, were classified by the number
of children per fraternity, as follows:
Number of Total number
Number of children per of children
fraternities fraternity in group
1 2 2
11 3 33
8 4 32
17 5 85
13 6 78
14 7 98
9 8 72
11 9 99
10 10 100
3 11 33
2 12 24
1 13 13
--- ---
100 669
The average at death of these 669 persons was 64. 7 years. The child
mortality (first 4 years of life) was 7. 5% of the total mortality, 69
families showing no deaths of that kind. The group is as a whole,
therefore, long-lived.
The problem was to measure the resemblance between brothers and sisters
in respect of longevity,--to find whether knowledge of the age at which
one died would justify a prediction as to the age at death of the
others,--or technically, it was to measure the fraternal correlation of
longevity. A zero coefficient here would show that there is no
association; that from the age at which one dies, nothing whatever can
be predicted as to the age at which the others will die. Since it is
known that heredity is a large factor in longevity, such a finding would
mean that all deaths were due to some accident which made the
inheritance of no account.
In an ordinary population it has been found that the age at death of
brothers and sisters furnishes a coefficient of correlation of the order
of . 3, which shows that heredity does determine the age at which one
shall die to considerable extent, but not absolutely. [190]
The index of correlation[191] between the lengths of life within the
fraternity in these 100 selected families, furnished a coefficient
of-. 0163? . 0672, practically zero. In other words, if the age is known at
which a member of one of these families died, whether it be one month or
100 years, nothing whatever can be predicted about the age at which his
brothers and sisters died.
Remembering that longevity is in general inherited, and that it is found
in the families of all the people of this study (since one in each
fraternity lived to be 90 or over) how is one to interpret this zero
coefficient? Evidently it means that although these people had inherited
a high degree of longevity, their deaths were brought about by causes
which prevented the heredity from getting full expression. As far as
hereditary potentialities are concerned, it can be said that all their
deaths were due to accident, using that word in a broad sense to include
all non-selective deaths by disease. If they had all been able to get
the full benefit of their heredity, it would appear that each of these
persons might have lived to 90 or more, as did the one in each family
who was recorded by the Genealogical Record Office. Genetically, these
other deaths may be spoken of as premature.
In an ordinary population, the age of death is determined to the extent
of probably 50% by heredity. In this selected long-lived population,
heredity appears not to be responsible in any measurable degree
whatsoever for the differences in age at death.
The result may be expressed in another, and perhaps more striking, way.
Of the 669 individuals studied, a hundred--namely, one child in each
family--lived beyond 90; and there were a few others who did. But some
550 of the group, though they had inherited the potentiality of reaching
the average age of 90, actually died somewhere around 60; they failed by
at least one-third to live up to the promise of their inheritance. If we
were to generalize from this single case, we would have to say that
five-sixths of the population does not make the most of its physical
inheritance.
This is certainly a fact that discourages fatalistic optimism. The man
who tells himself that, because of his magnificent inherited
constitution, he can safely take any risk, is pretty sure to take too
many risks and meet with a non-selective--i. e. , genetically, a
premature--death, when he might in the nature of things have lived
almost a generation longer.
It should be remarked that most of the members of this group seem to
have lived in a hard environment. They appear to belong predominantly to
the lower strata of society; many of them are immigrants and only a very
few of them, to judge by a cursory inspection of the records, possessed
more than moderate means. This necessitated a frugal and industrious
life which in many ways was doubtless favorable to longevity but which
may often have led to overexposure, overwork, lack of proper medical
treatment, or other causes of a non-selective death. We would not push
the conclusion too far, but we can not doubt that this investigation
shows the folly of ignoring the environment,--shows that the best
inherited constitution must have a fair chance. And what has here been
found for a physical character, would probably hold good in even greater
degree for a mental character. All that man inherits is the capacity to
develop along a certain line under the influence of proper
stimuli,--food and exercise. The object of eugenics is to see that the
inherent capacity is there. Given that, the educational system is next
needed to furnish the stimuli. The consistent eugenist is therefore an
ardent euthenist. He not only works for a better human stock but,
because he does not want to see his efforts wasted, he always works to
provide the best possible environment for this better stock.
In so far, then, as euthenics is actually providing man with more
favorable surroundings,--not with ostensibly more favorable surroundings
which, in reality, are unfavorable--there can be no antagonism between
it and eugenics. Eugenics is, in fact, a prerequisite of euthenics, for
it is only the capable and altruistic man who can contribute to social
progress; and such a man can only be produced through eugenics.
Eugenic fatalism, a blind faith in the omnipotence of heredity
regardless of the surroundings in which it is placed, has been shown by
the study of long-lived families to be unjustified. It was found that
even those who inherited exceptional longevity usually did not live as
long as their inheritance gave them the right to expect.
