The Social Direction of Evolution Part 1

The Social Direction of Evolution.

by William E. Kellicott.

PREFACE

This small volume is based upon three lectures on Eugenics delivered at Oberlin College in April, 1910. In preparing them for publication many extensions and a few additions have been made in order to present the subject more adequately and to include some very recent results of eugenic investigation.

Few subjects have come into deserved prominence more rapidly than has Eugenics. Biologists, social workers, thoughtful students and observers of human life everywhere, have felt the growing necessity for some kind of action leading to what are now recognized as eugenic ends. Hitherto the lack of guiding principles has left us in the dark as to where to take hold and what methods to pursue. To-day, however, progress in the human phases of biological science clearly gives us clews regarding modes of attack upon many of the fundamental problems of human life and social improvement and progress, and suggests concrete methods of work.

The present essay does not represent an original contribution to the subject of Eugenics. It is not a complete statement of the facts and foundations of Eugenics in any particular. It is rather an attempt to state briefly and suggestively, in simple, matter-of-fact terms the present status of this science. While Eugenics is a social topic in practice, in its fundamentals, in its theory, it is biological. It is therefore necessary that the subject be approached primarily from the biological point of view and with some familiarity with biological methods and results. The control of human evolution--physical, mental, moral--is a serious subject of supremest importance and gravest consequents. It must be considered without excitement--thoughtfully, not emotionally.

It is hardly necessary to add that no one can speak of the subject of Eugenics without feeling the immensity of his debt to Sir Francis Galton and to Professor Karl Pearson. From the writings of these pioneers I have drawn heavily in this essay. The recent summary of the Whethams, and Davenport's valuable essay on Eugenics have also served as the sources of quotation.

W. E. K.

Baltimore, Md., November, 1910.

I

THE SOURCES AND AIMS OF THE SCIENCE OF EUGENICS

"Bravas to all impulses sending sane children to the next age!"

Eugenics has been defined as "the science of being well born." In the words of Sir Francis Galton, who may fairly be claimed as the founder of this newest of sciences, "Eugenics is the study of the agencies under social control, that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, either physically or mentally."

The idea of definitely undertaking to improve the innate characteristics of the human race has been expressed repeatedly through centuries--fancifully, seriously, hopefully, and now scientifically. Since the times of Theognis and of Plato the student of animate Nature has been aware of the possibility of the degradation or of the elevation of the human race-characters. The conditions under which life exists gradually change: the customs and ideals of societies change rapidly. Times inevitably come when, if we are to maintain or to advance our racial position, we find it necessary to change in an adaptive way our att.i.tude toward these changing social relations and conditions of life. If we neglect to do this we go down in the racial struggle, as history so clearly and so repeatedly warns us.

In the opinion of many biologists and sociologists such a time has now arrived. The suspension of many forms of natural selection in human society, the currency of the "rabbit theory" of racial prosperity--based upon the idea of mere numerical increase of the population, the complacent disregard of the increase of the pauper, insane, and criminal elements of our population, the dearth of individuals of high ability--even of competent workmen, all are resulting in evil and will result disastrously unless deliberately controlled. It is hoped that this control, though at first conscious, "artificial," may later become fixed as an element of social custom and conscience and thus operate automatically and the more effectively. The result will be not only the restoration of our race to its original vigor, mental and physical, but further the carrying on of the race to a surpa.s.sing vigor and supremacy.

The aim of Eugenics is the production of a more healthy, more vigorous, more able humanity. Again in the words of Galton "The aim of Eugenics is to represent each cla.s.s ... by its best specimens; that done to leave them to work out their common civilization in their own way.... To bring as many influences as can be reasonably employed to cause the useful cla.s.ses in the community to contribute more than their present proportion to the next generation"; and further, we might add, to cause the useless, vicious cla.s.ses to contribute to the next generation less than their present proportion.

With this definition of Eugenics and preliminary statement of its aims before us we may proceed to a somewhat fuller statement of the facts within this field. First let us consider the relation of the science of Eugenics to its parent sciences, biology and sociology, then after mentioning some of the steps in the development of the present eugenic movement, we may describe some of the conditions which give us human beings pause and lead us to appreciate the necessity for a reconsideration of much that enters into our present social organization and conduct.

Shortly before the publication of "The Origin of Species," Darwin was asked by Alfred Russell Wallace whether he proposed to include any reference to the evolution of man. Darwin's reply was: "You ask whether I shall discuss man. I think I shall avoid the whole subject, as so surrounded with prejudices; though I fully admit that it is the highest and most interesting problem for the naturalist." This prejudice which Darwin knew would preclude a just consideration of the subject of man's origin and evolution, grew out of the former and long current conception of the position occupied by man in the whole scheme of Nature--of "Man's Place in Nature."

This conception, happily obsolete now among thinkers, though occasionally seen lurking in out of the way corners shaded from the light of modern philosophy and science, placed Man and the rest of the universe in separate categories. Man was one, all the rest another. It was for Man's benefit or pleasure that the rains descended, that the corn grew and ripened, that the sun shone, the birds sang, the landscape was spread before the view. For Man's warning or punishment the lightning struck, comets appeared, disease ravaged, insects tormented and destroyed. It was certainly very natural that Man should regard himself as a thing apart, particularly since he was able to control and to regulate Nature, and to take tribute from her so extensively. But the scientist regarded man differently; from him the world learned to recognize man as an integral factor in Nature--as one with Nature, possessing the same structures, performing the same activities, as other animals; subject to much the same control and with much the same purposes in life and in Nature as other living things. There is to-day no necessity to enlarge upon this view. As Ray Lankester puts it: "Man is held to be a part of Nature; a being, resulting from and driven by the one great nexus of mechanism which we call Nature."

But the echoes of the older nave view of Man and his Nature sounded long after the rational scientific conception had become dominant. It is not so very long ago that psychology was little more than human psychology; nor has sociology long since gone outside the purely human for explanations of the facts of human society. Nowadays, however, psychology has a firm comparative basis and sociology finds much that is illuminating and helpful in the purely biological aspects of the human animal. Very naturally, then, we have had social science studying man as Man, with a capital M: biological science studying man as a natural animal.

But now that modern trend of scientific synthesis which has brought forth a Physical-Chemistry and a Chemical-Physiology and a Bio-Chemistry, is combining the purely social and the purely biological studies of man into a new Bio-Sociology. And as one phase of this new partners.h.i.+p we have the subject of Eugenics--the science of racial integrity and progress, built upon the overlapping fields of Biology and Sociology.

We can trace the idea, perhaps better the hope, of Eugenics from the modern times of ancient Greece. Plato laid stress upon the idea of the "purification of the State." In his Republic he pointed out that the quality of the herd or flock could be maintained only by breeding from the best, consciously selected for that purpose by the shepherd, and by the destruction of the weaklings; and that when one was concerned with the quality of his hunting dogs or horses or pet birds, he was careful to utilize this knowledge. He drew attention to the necessity in the State for a functionary corresponding to the shepherd to weed out the undesirables and to prevent them from multiplying their kind.

Plato stated clearly the essential idea of the inheritance of individual qualities and the danger to the State of a large and increasing body of degenerates and defectives. He called upon the legislators to purify the State. But the legislators paid no heed. The able-bodied and able-minded continued to be sacrificed to the G.o.d of War; the degenerates and defectives--not fit to fight--were the ones left at home to become parents of the next generation. And to-day Greece remains an awful warning.

We cannot describe or even enumerate the wrecks of the many plans for race improvement that are strewn from Plato to our day. Sporadic, emotional, visionary, often it must be confessed suggested by possibilities of material gain to the "leader"--they have all pa.s.sed.

They failed because they were unscientific; because there was available no solid foundation of determined fact upon which to build.

One need suggest only the Oneida Community, as it was originally planned, or the Parisian society of _L'Elite_--in both of which the selection of mates was to be carefully controlled--or some of the fantasies of Bernard Shaw, to indicate the character of these failures. Only recently have we become able to suggest the possibility of race improvement by scientific methods, and only very recently has the possibility appeared in the light of a necessity, the alternative being the universal reward of the unsuccessful.

The present eugenic movement may be said to date from 1865 when Francis Galton showed that mental qualities are inherited just as are physical qualities, and pointed out that this opened the way to an improvement of the race in all respects. The data in support of this pregnant conclusion were included in Galton's work on "Hereditary Genius" published in 1869, when he again emphasized definitely the possibility and desirability of improving the natural qualities of the human race. His suggestions fell upon the stony ground of ignorance even of the most elementary facts of heredity. The subject was raised again in his "Inquiries into the Human Faculty" in 1883, and the word "Eugenics" was then coined. The ground was still non-receptive.

Then followed a period of rapid increase in our knowledge of heredity in animals and plants and in 1901 Galton returned again to the subject, this time in a more direct and elaborate way, and his Huxley Lecture of that year before the Anthropological Inst.i.tute was upon "The Possible Improvement of the Human Breed under the Existing Conditions of Law and Sentiment." This time he received a real hearing, partly on account of recent disclosures regarding the state of human society and its trends in Great Britain, chiefly because there was at last a real scientific basis for such a proposal. In this lecture, after declaring that the possibility of human race culture is no longer to be considered an academical or impractical problem, Galton proceeded to show that we have a sufficient biological knowledge of man to furnish a working basis. We know of man's variability and heredity--that some men are worth more than others in the community, and that individual traits are also family possessions.

This he followed up with definite suggestions as to possible means of the "augmentation of favored stock."

The then recently organized Sociological Society of London took up the subject enthusiastically, and in 1904 and 1905 Galton was invited to deliver addresses before the Society upon this topic. In his first address he spoke upon "Eugenics: its Definition, Scope, and Aims."

This proved to be a statement of the elementary principles of the subject--a sort of eugenic creed. Here Galton struck fire. The reading of his paper was followed by very extended discussion and criticism, and he received some enthusiastic support. A few of these enthusiastic supporters brought forth, on the spur of the moment, wonderful, visionary schemes for eugenic progress; much of the adverse criticism went wide of the mark; and, on the whole, Galton must have felt that at least he had demonstrated fully one need for which he had spoken, that of developing a race of able thinkers. Galton's second address before the same society the year following was partly directed at some of this hasty criticism and partly devoted to the setting forth of the possibly ultimate place of the ideals of race improvement in the conscience of the community, and to showing how the whole subject is fraught with "the greatest spiritual dignity and the utmost social importance."

The subject was now fairly launched. Magazine articles appeared on "The New National Patriotism," "Breeding Better Men," _et cetera_.

Meanwhile the bio-sociologist settled down to work. And during the five years that have since pa.s.sed an immense amount of knowledge has been gained, and a large number of excellent workers recruited.

Interest in the subject is now general, and its importance recognized as vital. Karl Pearson, known as a good fighter, is Galton's "beak and claws," performing for him much the same kind of service that Huxley performed for Darwin nearly fifty years ago. Galton himself has established a Eugenics Laboratory under the direction of Professor Pearson in the Biometric Laboratory of the University of London and has endowed a Research Fellows.h.i.+p and Research Scholars.h.i.+ps. This laboratory is publis.h.i.+ng a series of Memoirs and a series of Lectures upon eugenic topics. The University of London is publis.h.i.+ng, with the a.s.sistance of the Drapers' Company, a series of "Studies in National Deterioration." A periodical, _The Eugenics Review_, is established and appearing regularly. A Eugenics Education Society has been founded to popularize and disseminate the technical information contained in the memoirs and special papers. England remains the seat of greatest activity and interest, but much is being done now in this country. In America the subject is largely under the auspices of the American Breeders a.s.sociation, which has organized an extremely efficient Committee on Eugenics with which a large number of biological and medical workers are cooperating. This committee has cooperated in the establishment of a Eugenics Record Office, at Cold Spring Harbor, under the direction of H. H. Laughlin. Relevant facts are beginning to pour in from many directions; eugenic ideals are being given practical expression, and the science is rapidly gaining headway.

It may be asked: "Well, what is it all about; are we as a nation not doing well--well enough?" Is it not true, as some have suggested, that this eugenic movement is but one more expression of England's temporary national hysteria transferred to this country? In answer to such queries let us state some of the conditions which have suggested to so many sober thinkers and observers that the time is arriving, has in fact arrived, when we must begin to think of the future of our communities and nations and of our race, rather than contentedly to read of and meditate upon the great achievements of our past, or to parade with self-satisfied air through our gla.s.s houses of Anglo-Saxon supremacy. Even were we unthreatened, were we amply holding our own, the mere fact of the possibility of a natural increase of human capacity would make it a practical subject of the utmost importance.

We may be sure that somewhere a nation will avail itself of such a possibility as the increase of inherent native talent, physical, mental, moral, and will tend to become a strong and dominant people.

Why should not _we_ be that people?

It seems that the facts that lead us to think of the future in this matter are of two quite distinct cla.s.ses. First, we have a great ma.s.s of data relative to the composition of our societies and to the changing character of our population, social data of deep significance when broadly viewed and thoughtfully considered. Second, there are certain biological considerations, which all apart from existing social conditions should warn us to be on the lookout. First let us review briefly some of the latter, some of those biological considerations which lead us to regard thoughtfully the problem of the future evolution of man and his societies.

As with other species of animals, each of us comes into the world equipped with a physical const.i.tution and a few simple fundamental instincts. But unlike all other animals, the possession of these alone does not enable us to take and maintain our positions in the community life. Man's life to-day is subject to a great social heritage which, unlike his natural heritage, can be realized only as a result of his own activity and acquisition. Civilized man is the result of Nature plus Nurture. Civilization has been defined as "the sum of human contrivances which enable human beings to advance independently of heredity." The knowledge of fact, historic and scientific, of literature, of art, of custom, and manner, and all that goes to make up the culture and education which are the distinctive traits of our human lives--all this is no possession of ours when we make our first bow to society. Nor do these things become ours through a simple process of growth and development while we remain the pa.s.sive subjects. All of these things represent the active individual acquirement of the racial acc.u.mulation of tradition and learning--what the biologist would call the results of modification. Our troubles begin when we realize that in the acquisition of this load each generation does not begin where the preceding left off, not at all--but we begin where our parents did. The first thing we do toward advancing our places in the world is to absorb what we can of the same kind of thing our forbears absorbed, learn over again their lessons, repeat their experiences; and then we proceed straightway to increase the difficulties for the next generation by writing more books, discovering more facts, making a little more history, and so it goes: the load of tradition increases with every successive generation, and so it has gone since the beginning of man's civilization. It is declared that the modern schoolboy knows more than did Aristotle. We cannot resist the inquiry, Has the modern schoolboy better native ability than had Aristotle? Here is the whole point of this matter; are we any better endowed mentally now that the amount to be mentally absorbed and accomplished is so many times greater? Has our capacity for mental acc.u.mulation kept pace with the amount to be acc.u.mulated, and with the necessity for such acc.u.mulation as a fitting for human life of the civilized variety?

Madison Bentley has recently put it nicely in this way. Does talent grow with knowledge? "May we not suppose that the men and women of some distant glacial age, who dwelt upon the ice, wore the skin of the seal, and ate raw fish, had as much brain and as generous a measure of talent as have their remote descendants who wear sealskins, and eat ices and caviar?" He continues that we have little or nothing to show that the hereditary or innate growth of the mind has kept pace with the growing social heritage; that as regards mental endowment we begin where our distant ancestors began. The chief difference between us and them is that we proceed at once to burden ourselves with information and obligation which for them did not exist. To compa.s.s our languages, sciences, histories, arts, the complicated social, political, moral regime, we are supplied with virtually the same minds that primitive man used for his primitive needs. Is it any wonder, he asks, that "education" is the central problem for our or any other advanced civilization?

The biologist asks whether it is not high time to look beyond this artificial bolster of education, to the possibility of actual improvement of the innate mental abilities of man. The student of heredity and evolution looking at this problem has two contributions to make. First, if the mental capabilities of the present race are too limited, increase them; if our minds are too weak to carry the burdens which now must be carried, do not give up the task--strengthen the racial mind. Second, if we should seem to be in danger of developing a stock which is well fitted and able to carry the load of mental acquirement and to push on intellectually, but which is at the same time physically deficient, weak, or sterile, or susceptible to disease, do not let the intellectual capabilities diminish, but build up the physical const.i.tution to a higher supporting level. These are not idle suggestions nor whimsical schemes. The biologist makes them knowing that these things are possible; not only possible, they must be accomplished. We are foolishly building our civilization in the form of an inverted pyramid of individually acquired characteristics.

This structure can be made stable only by supplying a broader basis of innate ability which can safely carry the load. This is the first biological warning to sociology.

The second warning we may put in the form in which Ray Lankester in his "Kingdom of Man" has recently presented it so strikingly and which we may abstract freely and with some interpolation. "In Nature's struggle for existence, death ... is the fate of the vanquished, while the only reward to the victors ... is the permission to reproduce their kind--to carry on by heredity to another generation, the specific qualities by which they triumphed." The _origin_ of man, partly, at any rate, by such a process of natural selection, is one chapter in his history. Another begins with the development of his mental qualities, which are of such unprecedented power in Nature.

These qualities so dominate all else in his "living" activities that they largely cut him off from the general operations of natural selection. Perhaps the only direction in which natural selection is the chiefly operative factor in human evolution to-day is in the development of immunity from infectious disease. Just as man is a new departure in the unfolding scheme of the world, so his presence and characteristics lead to new methods of evolution, of survival, and the like. Knowledge, reason, self-consciousness, will, are new processes in Nature, and it is these which have largely determined the direction of man's history. Nature's discipline of death is more or less successfully resisted by the will of man. Man is Nature's Rebel.

"Where Nature says 'Die'! Man says 'I will live.'" By his wits and his will man has overcome many of Nature's bounds and difficulties without changing, as other organisms would, his innate characteristics. Not only this but man has obtained control of his surroundings and at every step of his development he has receded farther from the rule of Nature. Now "he has advanced so far and become so unfitted to the earlier rule, that to suppose that Man can 'return to Nature' is as unreasonable as to suppose that an adult animal can return to its mother's womb."

But at present man puts into operation no real subst.i.tute for natural selection. "The standard raised by the rebel man is not that of fitness to the conditions proffered by extra-human Nature, but is one of ideal comfort, prosperity, and conscious joy of life--imposed by the will of man and involving a control, and in important respects a subversion, of what were Nature's methods of dealing with life before she had produced her insurgent son." Progress in the control of Nature has been going on with enormous rapidity during the last two centuries particularly--the "nature searchers" have placed almost limitless power in the hands of men. And yet the builders of society and governments and nations have failed to profit by this increase in natural knowledge. In our social and national organization we remain fixed in the old paths of ignorance. Lankester says: "I speak for those who would urge the conscious and deliberate a.s.sumption of his kingdom by Man--not as a matter of markets and of increased opportunity for the cosmopolitan dealers in finance--but as an absolute duty, the fulfillment of Man's destiny." The purpose of his essay is "to point out that civilized man has proceeded so far in his interference with extra-human Nature, has produced for himself and for the living organisms a.s.sociated with him such a special state of things, by his rebellion against natural selection and his defiance of pre-human dispositions, that he must either go on and acquire firmer control of the conditions, or perish miserably by the vengeance certain to fall on the half-hearted meddler in great affairs." Man is a fighting rebel who at every forward step lays himself open to the liabilities of greater penalties should his attack prove unsuccessful.

Moreover, while emanc.i.p.ating himself from the destructive and progressive methods of Nature, man has acc.u.mulated a new series of dangers and difficulties with which he must incessantly contend and which he must finally control. Man has taken a tremendous step--created desperate conditions by the exercise of his will--further control is essential in order that he should escape from final misery and destruction.

Nor is this idle, academic invective. The biologist knows that this is true. It is not idle, for man has the means at his command--it is merely a question of their employment. This, then, is the second biological warning to sociology and to statecraft.

Now we may return to consider briefly the nature of those social data which we suggested force us to think seriously of the problem of man's future.

As a primary datum we may note the increasing population of the countries of Europe and North America (Fig. 1). The countries whose population is increasing most rapidly are the United States, Russia, and the German Empire. We know that one important factor of the increase in this country is that of immigration, but this is not sufficient to account for the total. There is continued multiplication of the native population, and of the immigrant after he is here. We wish only to point out in connection with this diagram the steady trend of the population upward, and the fact that obviously somewhere there must be a limit. This cannot go on without end.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 1.--INCREASE OF POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES AND THE PRINc.i.p.aL COUNTRIES OF EUROPE FROM 1800 TO 1900 (From "Statistical Atlas," Twelfth Census of the United States.)]

An extremely pertinent fact here has been disclosed by Pearson and is based upon very extensive observations among several different cla.s.ses and nations. It is this--that one fourth of the married population of the present generation produce one half of the next generation. The death rate and the ratio of unmarried to married being what they are, this relation may be stated in this way--twelve per cent of all the individuals born in the last generation produced one half of the present generation. "This is not only a general law, but it is practically true for each cla.s.s in the community." This conclusion is based upon data from the English, Danish, and Welsh peoples of professional, domestic, commercial, industrial, and pastoral cla.s.ses, and the per cent of married persons found to be producing one half of each generation varies from twenty-three to twenty-seven with an average of twenty-five per cent. We must ask at once--what is the source of this fourth which is contributing double its quota to the next generation? Is this twenty-five per cent drawn proportionately from all cla.s.ses of society or are some groups contributing relatively more than others? Is there any relation between this superfertility and the possession of desirable or undesirable characteristics? We may answer at once--there is a distinct and positive relation between civic undesirability and high fertility. We shall return to this subject at the close of the next chapter; only the bare fact is to be mentioned at this time.

It is a matter of common notice and remark that to-day, in England at any rate, there is a dearth of youthful ability. It exists in commerce, science, literature, politics, the bar, the church. We cannot dismiss as merely fas.h.i.+onable the statements that the able cla.s.ses are not replacing themselves, that men of ability are less able than formerly. Whether or not this is also the condition in America to-day, we know that it soon will be the condition unless steps are taken to bring about a positive relation between civic desirability and ability and the numerical production of offspring.

Let us turn to data of a somewhat different kind. The United States Census Reports for the decades from 1850 to 1900 (1904) include data relative to the number of prisoners in this country. The returns for 1904 omitted certain cla.s.ses previously enumerated so that for comparative purposes the figures given have to be corrected. On the corrected basis these reports show that the total number of prisoners in the United States increased from 6,737 in 1850 to about 100,000 in 1904, while the total population increased during the same time only from twenty-three to eighty millions (Fig. 2). The ratio of prisoners to the total population is of course the significant relation here, and this increased from 29 per 100,000 in 1850 to 125 per 100,000 in 1904. Not all of this increase can be attributed to more rigid enforcement of the law or raised standards of morality; there is some reason for thinking that whatever change there has been in these respects has tended to have the opposite effect. We should note, in considering such data as these, that the penologist generally a.s.sumes that of the total number of offenders, actually only about ten per cent are in prison at any one time.