Chapter XIX Eugenic Sociology

Eugenic social thought is the child of biological discoveries. Eugenics, the science of good breeding, which did not achieve scientific standing until the closing years of the last century, may be traced back in its incipient forms to Plato, who advocated that strength should mate only with strength, and that imperfect children should be eliminated from society. In its scientific origins eugenics dates from 1859, when Darwin’s Origin of Species was first published. Its beginning as a distinct field of human thinking is found in the articles by Francis Galton on “Hereditary Talent and Genius,” which appeared in 1865; and in 1869, in book form under the title, Hereditary Genius.XIX-1

Eugenic social thought deals with the operation of the laws of heredity in society. It was a part of this field which Francis Galton made world-known by his treatises on Hereditary Genius and Inquiries into the Human Faculty.XIX-2 In 1904, Galton wrote a paper entitled: “Eugenics; Its Definition, Scope and Aims.” In this dissertation the new science of eugenics was formally introduced to the world. Gabon’s analysis of eugenics became its leading interpretation.XIX-3

The mantle of the founder fell upon Professor Karl Pearson, whose work at times has assumed a distinctly statistical nature. Professor Pearson’s leaning toward biometry has brought severe criticism upon him. The statistical approach, while exact and thought-provoking, is subject to various errors in interpretation of data. The viewpoint from which Professor Pearson writes, however, is not one-sided. For example, he states that “it may require years to replace a great leader of man, but a stable and efficient society can only be the outcome of centuries of development.”XIX-4 He holds that group conscience ought for the sake of social welfare to be stronger than private interest, and that the ideal citizen should be able to form a judgment free from personal bias.XIX-5

C. W. Saleeby, another English writer, has developed an independent reputation as a eugenist.XIX-6 In the United States, such men as C. B. DavenportXIX-7 and Paul Popenoe have made important eugenic contributions. The recent tendency has been to be wary of purely statistical studies of heredity and to rely more definitely upon case studies. However, since eugenics is directly indebted to the studies of heredity and since heredity must be investigated for several generations, eugenic social thought has not yet developed far.

Galton defined eugenics as the science of good breeding. Its aim as a pure science is to study the agencies under social control “that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, either physically or mentally.” Galton’s program, as outlined by the founder shortly before his death, insisted upon (1) a study of the laws of heredity, (2) a dissemination of knowledge about heredity, (3) a study of the factors underlying marriage, (4) a study of birth rates, and (5) a case study of individual families.

Eugenic social thought holds that heredity among human beings operates according to the same laws that govern heredity among animals. The theory of Mendelian units becomes in practice the theory of multiple factors. The unit characters, upon analysis, appear to be complex and to be inherited in complex ways. Multiple factors are inherited from generation to generation directly when pure factors are united with pure factors. But when the pure is united with the hybrid, then the laws of dominance and recessiveness operate. In such combinations certain factors tend to express themselves in greater proportion than do other elements. This failure to secure expression in a given generation, however, means that the specific factor is recessive for the time being. Later, it will likely appear.

Galton stated another important eugenic law, the law of regression. Each peculiarity is inherited by the offspring on the average in a slightly less degree than it is found in the parent. Hence, according to Galton, good traits and poor traits alike are inherited in a degree nearer mediocrity by the offspring than by the parents. This law partially explains why gifted men rarely have sons who are equally gifted. The law seems to hold good for large numbers, but not when considered in relation to single families. It serves as a check upon variation and mutation.

Galton and Pearson advanced another statistical law, the law of ancestral inheritance. Galton supposed that the parents contribute to the child one-half of his inherited factors, the grandparents one-fourth, and so on. Pearson has secured statistical evidence which shows that Galton’s geometric series is incorrect, and that on the average in a large number of cases the parents together contribute to the child .624 of his traits; the four grandparents, .198; the eight great grandparents, .063; and so on.

The law of mutation, described by de Vries and other geneticists, refers to the appearance of mutants, or individuals who do not reproduce to form but represent a new line of heredity. In this way the appearance of genius may often be accounted for. However, the factors which explain the appearance of mutants have not yet been analyzed.

Another fundamental genetic consideration is the law of selection. If individuals with worthy traits mate only with individuals who possess worthy traits, a superior stock will be produced. This tendency is very important, since it points the way to a potent method of securing social progress.

Eugenic social thought has been developed in part on the basis of the Weismann theory of no or slight transmission of acquired traits. The germ-plasm is transmitted from individual to offspring in a direct line of descent. Injuries to the parent rarely change the nature of the germ-plasm. Only extreme malnutrition or excessive use of alcohol apparently exerts a definite influence on the germ cells. Nature has thus made provision for the protection of germ-plasm, whether strong or defective. Society, then, may encourage the mating of individuals who possess strong physical and mental traits, and discourages the mating of individuals who are defective—thus securing its own positive improvement.

Eugenic social thought follows two courses. Restrictive eugenics advocates the segregation of the so-called dysgenic classes, such as the feeble-minded, the insane, and the grossly defective criminal. Public opinion reacts against sterilization; injustice that cannot be remedied may be done through the use of sterilization. Segregation by sexes, while involving expense, is a satisfactory eugenic method of safeguarding society against the reproduction of dysgenic persons.

The other trend of eugenic thought supports the raising of the standards of choice in mating. Constructive eugenics, as distinguished from restrictive eugenics, urges a program of education whereby young people will habitually rate one another by physical and mental standards rather than by wealth and class standards.

Eugenics disapproves of random mating. It favors assortative mating, because, for example, the “marriage of representatives of two long-lived strains ensures that the offspring will inherit more longevity than does the ordinary man.”XIX-9 Eugenics thus stresses the importance of teaching young people eugenic ideas, and of training them to be guided by these ideals rather than by caprice and passion.XIX-10 Eugenic ideals include health, paternity and maternity, and pleasing disposition. Education and character are secondary eugenic ideals of importance.

A study of the birth rate shows that the inferior stocks and classes of individuals produce many more children than do the superior groups. Many cultured people do not marry, or if they marry they keep the birth rate very low. As a result, the racial character of a whole people may change within a few generations. The superior strains may be lost and the inferior furnish the entire population.

The low birth rate of the superior stocks is due to several factors: (1) The lengthening period of education and of professional training calls for the postponement of marriage. (2) The desire to give children the best advantages limits the birth rate. (3) The increasing spirit of independence on the part of women causes a postponement of marriage and a limitation of the number of children. These and other causes have produced a differential birth rate in favor of the inferior strains. Eugenic thought urges that the differential be reversed in favor of the superior strains. This conclusion implies that the dysgenic classes must be prevented from producing children, that the poor must be raised to higher educational and economic levels and taught to limit the birth rate, and that the eugenically superior be taught to increase the birth rate.

Eugenics pronounces war to be both dysgenic and eugenic.XIX-11 (1) It is dysgenic in that the bravest and the physically best are killed first. In the case of a long war only the weakest men physically and mentally are left alive to propagate the race. (2) War is dysgenic in that it produces a large number of hurried marriages. Rational choices of mates are supplanted by sudden emotional reactions. (3) War is dysgenic in that sex immorality greatly increases. Prostitution flourishes in the neighborhood of military encampments, unless rigid means of control are established. (4) Again, the dysgenic effect of war is seen in the period of socio-mental unrest which always follows war, and which among other things undermines rational sexual selection.

The chief eugenic effect of war is manifested during the period of training. This preparation period accents the importance of a strong physique and health measures. An insipid, stoop-shouldered population of city young men may be transformed into an army of fit soldiers. However, the conclusions are obvious that the dysgenic effects of war are far more potent than the eugenic gains, and that the eugenic advantages may he acquired in other ways than by promulgating war.

Eugenics looks askance at the feminism movement. Feminism once meant the development of the womanly traits of the sex. It now refers to the elimination as far as possible of sex differences. It would make women as nearly as possible like men. Eugenics objects to this trend, since it underestimates the importance of the fact that women physically are built to be mothers. To the extent that women enter into all the occupations, they will become men-like; and their efficiency as mothers of the race will decrease, and the race will suffer.

The economic equality of the sexes is a satisfactory doctrine to the eugenist if the doctrine is extended to make motherhood a salaried occupation, like mill work or stenography.XIX-12 “Child-bearing should be recognized as being as worthy of remuneration as any occupation which men enter, and should be paid for (by the state) on the same basis.”XIX-13

Eugenics would throw every possible safeguard around motherhood, especially in the period immediately before and after the birth of the child. The mother, even the expectant mother, “is doing our business, indispensable and exacting business, and we must take care of her accordingly. She is not only a worker but the foremost of all workers.”XIX-14

Eugenic thought as represented in the writings of C. W. Saleeby has denominated alcohol, venereal disease, and tuberculosis as “racial poisons.” While there is some doubt regarding the eugenic effects of taking small amounts of alcohol into the human body, eugenists are agreed that alcohol, when taken in excess quantities, affects the germ-plasm and produces a neurotic taint. It appears that alcoholism may be a cause in producing defective children. The verdicts of hygiene and economics that alcoholism is injurious to the race is supported by eugenics.

Venereal disease, another so-called racial poison, produces toxins which apparently affect the germ-plasm indirectly if not directly. It lowers the physical and moral tone and causes unfavorable racial tendencies. Venereal disease tends to destroy the generative organs and to cut off the birth rate entirely. It is a result of sex immorality which in itself tends to produce children under such abnormal conditions of vice that it becomes an anti-social, if not a dysgenic factor, in society. To the extent of course, that venereal disease kills off the racially useless, it may be considered eugenic.XIX-15 Such a point of view, however, fails to rate properly the invasions which venereal disease is continually making upon normal and superior types of germ-plasm.

Tuberculosis weakens the membranous tissues and probably leads in a few generations to an unusual degree of susceptibility to the invasion of tubercle bacilli. It is still a question, however, to what extent tuberculosis may be counted a racial poison. Professor Hobhouse has argued that, by the development of scientific hygiene, it will be possible to center attention not upon eliminating a tubercular stock but upon eliminating the tubercle bacilli.XIX-16

In regard to race questions the social anthropologist and the eugenist represent different poles of thought. As was indicated in the preceding chapter, the social anthropologists, such as Boas and Thomas, support the theory of potential race equality. The eugenist, on the other hand, contends that there are inherently superior and inferior racial stocks, and that the marriages of representatives of inferior stocks with representatives of superior stocks will produce children of a stock distinctly lower than that of the superior stocks. The eugenists in the United States hold that the immigration of the southern and eastern peoples of Europe will not only supplant through a higher birth rate the native stock of Nordic origin but, where marriages between natives and southern and eastern European immigrants occur, it will lower the racial quality of the population. While eugenic thought in this matter deserves a complete and respectful hearing, it must be considered along with the findings of social anthropology.

Eugenic thought opposes the miscegenation of the Caucasian and African. The Negro, it is contended, is not only different from the Caucasian but as a rule is eugenically inferior, judged by the achievements of the Negro. Moreover, the eugenist interprets the anthropological tests to show that the innate ability of a colored man “is proportionate to the amount of white blood he has.” The conclusion of eugenics is that “in general the white race loses and the Negro gains from miscegenation,”XIX-17—as far as the germinal natures of the two races are concerned. The eugenist would forbid all intermarriage between the races, and urge that the taboo against sexual intercourse between the races be extended.

In the light of eugenic thought genealogy may become scientific, in fact, it may become a valuable source of scientific materials for eugenics. Heretofore genealogy has been the concern of a few leisure-class people, who have taken pleasure and pride in recounting the fact that some one of a possible thousand or more ancestors several generations back was distinguished in some way or other, and who would have friends or the public believe that they inherited from this ancestor of note the characteristics which made him great. Eugenics points out a nobler purpose to which genealogy may be put. It urges that mental and physical traits of every individual in all families be carefully analyzed and accurately and systematically recorded. In this way it will be possible in a generation to have available a large amount of eugenic materials, and in a few generations a reliable body of data for studying racial heredity.

The debate regarding the comparative influences of nature and nurture has been long and bitter. It may be said here that both heredity and environment are more or less equally essential in the development of human personality. Without inherited factors in the individual the environment has nothing upon which to work. Without a stimulating environment the inherited traits will remain dormant. Each human being has inherited factors which, if played upon by certain environmental factors, may lead the individual to try to wreck society or himself or both. Every person, also, has traits which, if stimulated by the proper environmental elements may cause him to develop into a useful member of society. While the environment cannot change the inherited potentialities very much, if any, it is a prime factor of vast importance in determining which inherited tendencies will never find expression, which will be expressed in modified ways, and which will reach full fruition. Eugenics insists with increasing force that educational programs shall provide that every child be not only well reared but also well born. A weakness in eugenic thought is that it implies that sound racial stock is sufficient to guarantee progress; it tends at times to overstress an aristocracy of racial stock. It sometimes detracts from the importance of character and moral discipline as essential elements in social progress.