The family and the nation, a study in natural inheritance and social responsibility

Front matter

S?tate College of Agriculture

3t Cornell ^HntberKitp

Uttiata. A. a.

Preface

To the writers of this book the train of ideas outlined therein has given unity to a host of previously unconnected observations. Personal, social, historical episodes have fallen into place, and one great force, ebbing and flowing throughout the ages, is seen moulding the fate of nations.

In the hope that the idea of this underlying unity, which has been so helpful to the writers, may prove useful to others, this book has been written.

To emphasize the importance of inheritance in determining the character and value of each individual, some account is given of recent scientific investigation ; while the pages of history, the composition of contemporary society, and the returns of the Registrar-General have been drawn upon to trace the eflFects of heredity on the social organism.

CambridgEj September 1909.

Introduction

Man's body and mind are framed and moulded by two influences — heredity and environment. Through his parents he inherits certain physical and mental powers which are developed or stunted by the circumstances of his life, by the education given to him by others or won by himself, and by the discipline which his own will, aided or unaided, enables him to extract from the changes and chances of this mortal life.

Great is the power of environment. "There, but for the Grace of God, goes John Bradford," is a thought that has occurred to us all when watching misfortunes we have escaped. The efforts of men of science, philanthropists, and statesmen have been directed for centuries towards improving the general environment of the race, and of late years with conspicuous success. Two centuries ago the annual death-rate of London was some eighty in a thousand ; to-day it has sunk to fifteen. And a lowered death-rate means more than lives prolonged. It means improved conditions, which give greater health and strength to those who, even in old circumstances, would have survived.

B

But, in our wise and beneficent search for better conditions of life, we must not forget the other influence which, even more than environment, goes to make personality. To improve the conditions in which life is passed, and by which it is moulded, is but part, probably by far the smaller part, of the problem. The deeper question, the conscious solution of which is opening out to all civilized nations, is how to maintain, and if possible to improve, the innate quality and character of the life itself.

The power of heredity is an old story. " Family likeness," " family characteristics," " family temper " are expressions which convey ideas well known to all men. Yet with amazing inconsistency we have taken little if any account of such knowledge in our conduct, little if any in our theories of social and political life. We have talked and acted as though it were of no account how men were bred, or what classes of the community were reproducing themselves fastest and what declining in number, as long as each individual was enabled by improved conditions to pass his brief lifetime in increased comfort and security.

The average quality of a race is but the average quality of the individuals composing it. By changes in environment, by modification of economic factors, we may alter the average qualities of the people, not only indirectly by improving the conditions of life, but directly also, by varying the rate at which different classes or sections of our folk bring children into the world. It becomes more and more clear that the groups and associations formed by men are not artificial, not mere matters of chance, but correspond to real differences of innate qualities, of mental and physical characters. Already, to some extent, the qualities embedded in the different classes are beginning to be understood, and can be subjected to statistical analysis. Already we see that, by legislation or by the pressure of enlightened public opinion, it may become possible here and there to direct or restrain the growth of population, and thus modify the future history of the race. If, by increased medical and hygienic knowledge, the feeble-minded and weak-bodied stocks be allowed to survive, and if, as seems to be the case at present, they reproduce themselves faster than do the better stocks, the relative numbers of such persons in the country must increase, and the average quality of the race deteriorate. If, by economic and social conditions, children be made too heavy a burden on the more desirable elements of the population, there is danger that the thrifty and far-seeing members of the community will postpone marriage, and, when married, restrict the number of their offspring. Thus, while the weak and careless elements grow at an increasing rate, the good stocks of the people check their rate of growth or even diminish in number, and the selective deterioration of the race is hastened in two ways.

How far are such tendencies apparent or immanent ? How can we guard against them or minimize their effects ? How can we maintain or improve the innate qualities of our race without trenching on moral freedom and personal responsibility, on ethical standards and religious convictions ?

It has been thought by some men that our growing knowledge of the power of heredity might weaken or destroy the sense of moral responsibility and personal freedom on which so much of our religious and ethical standards of conduct depends. Such a view, we profoundly believe, rests on a misconception of the basis of that sense of freedom and responsibility with which we are endowed. To this point we shall return ; but it may be well at once to remind the reader that effective freedom is increased and not diminished by a knowledge of the natural laws in accordance with which, whether we like it or not, life is organized. Civilized man, who understands the limitations of mechanical powers, is in effect much freer than is the savage, to whose credulous mind nothing is impossible. Moreover, personal freedom, unchecked by a strong ethical sense or religious conviction, may too readily degenerate into licence, and lose what should be its accompanying feeling of personal responsibility.

Although as yet in the problems of heredity we see but as in a glass darkly, nothing is gained by shutting our eyes. The proper study of man is mankind, and sooner or later the questions at issue must be faced. There is light enough to show that the problems disclosed are of vital importance. The scientific investigation of inheritance is now beginning to lead to definite knowledge — still fragmentary, it is true, but enough to point the way for future inquiry, and here and there to give certain principles which should be borne in mind when we are considering proposals for legislative or social action.

Till recently, the effect of individual conduct or of social legislation on the innate qualities of the people has been ignored, perhaps not even suspected. Yet the results of selective breeding on domestic plants and animals have been well known for a century or more. The marvellous success which has attended the efforts of breeders in obtaining strains of horses, cattle, and other animals fitted for special uses is only equalled by the results of the work of horticulturists in raising new varieties of fruit and flowers.

Before man's place in nature was understood and acknowledged, the idea that similar though unconscious selection was at work on himself seems but dimly to have crossed his mind. When Lyell and Darwin had placed man in his proper position in the sequence of biological forms, it was seen that principles found to hold generally in the animal and vegetable kingdoms were likely to be worth looking for in the case of the human race. The struggle for life, incessantly at work in the lower world, affects man also. It wUl tend to modify the character of a nation as it modifies the flora and fauna of a country. Then, as artificial means will change a homogeneous breed of wild animals into the several specialized forms of our domestic flocks and herds, so we must look for a modification of our folk for good or evil by the artificial conditions of modern civilization. There is no finality ; a nation must either be losing or gaining ground, either improving or degenerating. Hence the scientific study of the effect of the existing conditions of any time on the rates of reproduction of different stocks of the nation should be the chief work of the sociologist, and the control of those conditions the supreme duty of the statesman.

At present the study of environment holds the field.

The results of improvement are there more visible and more immediate. They are of incalculable value, and to them the progress of the past century is largely due. But the changes in the innate qualities of the race, though slower in action, are of even more profound importance than alterations of the external conditions of human existence. Man does not live by bread alone. His inborn qualities of body, mind, and soul are of more worth than physical comfort and convenience. Those qualities depend on heredity, and the form they take in any nation can be modified only by the slow process of selective parenthood. But, " though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small," and a wrongly directed selection destroys a race more utterly and irrevocably than any failure to take advantage of improved physical conditions of life.

A knowledge of the importance of heredity, instead of weakening the sense of responsibility, shows how much wider and deeper our responsibility is than had been suspected. We come to understand that on our personal and collective action depend not only the present environment of the people, but also the innate qualities of future generations. Blind acquiescence in evil, ignorance of the issues at stake, may result in irremediable injury to unborn millions. Not only are we our brother's keeper, but the guardian of the physical, mental, and moral character of his remotest descendants.

These ideas, once grasped, change profoundly the outlook on sociological and political problems. If once we come to look on all questions of investigation, legislation, and administration from this point of view.

we shall find, whatever may have been our previous political or social creed, our preconceived ideas sufFering startling changes. The first care must always be to ask with regard to each proposal, " Will it tend to favour the growth of those elements of the population which already are known to be of national worth ? " " Will it tend to check the reproduction of those whom the present fragmentary knowledge already points out as detrimental to the community ? " " Will it help to increase our knowledge of mankind, so that we shall be able more certainly to separate the sheep from the goats, and to discover what elements among the people are best and most worthy of encouragement ? "

For at every stage of our inquiry the cry for more knowledge becomes insistent. We are still in comparative darkness, and must walk warily in consequence. Direct action at present can be applied safely only at points clear even in the twilight. Our greatest need is for more light.

In all stages of natural development, living beings are subject to a competitive struggle in which the fitter for that struggle gain an advantage. The race is to the swift and the battle to the strong and skilful.

Whether or no this fight for life has led to the production and separation of distinct species in the exact manner suggested by Darwin, without doubt it has modified and is modifying the character of existing types. But the essence of natural selection consists in the conjunction of success in the struggle for life and its fruits with a preponderating rate of reproduction.

Unless the fittest to survive hand on their qualities to a larger number of descendants than are left by the failures, natural selection cannot act. It is of no use for an organism individually to survive unless it transmits the character which enabled it to do so to a preponderating number in succeeding generations. Until recent years, success in life's race among men has in general meant an increased number of offspring and a better chance for their survival. But now the growing restriction of the birth-rate in the successful classes in all ranks of society has separated the two essential concomitants of progress, and even of stability. A struggle for life and the survival of the fittest are meaningless alone ; the qualities of the fittest must survive superabundantly his own fleeting existence, if the struggle and the survival are to produce any good effect on the race.

In older, more natural, ages, when success in life and a dominant rate of reproduction went hand in hand, two kinds of struggle are to be distinguished. There is the individual rivalry between man and man for the fruits of the earth and the beauty pf woman. There is the combined clash of family with family, tribe with tribe, nation with nation. In both the fittest tend to survive ; but the fittest in the individual fight do not always go to make the more efficient social organism.

To conquer in the duel and in love a man needs courage, strength, skill, virility, and good looks. And it is necessary that the society which surrounds him should regard his success as natural and justifiable. The social conditions must be too simple and too healthy for it to be possible that

... a laggard in love and a dastard in war Was to wed the fair Eljen of young Lochinvar.

It is essential also that a man should have a sense of the justness of his cause. It is essential that society should not refuse him the fruits of his success out of misdirected sympathy with the loser.

But, for one tribe to exist against the pressure of surrounding peoples, a new group of qualities are needed. The power of combination and organization, the social instinct, readiness for self-sacrifice to the common good, love of home, country, and race — in a word, patriotism — all are needed to bring to birth and to develop a nation fit to hold its own in the fiery trial of war, and in the slow, grinding stress of economic competition.

Thus, out of the very agony and weariness of the strife, is born that social and moral sense which gives to man his. highest attribute and noblest reason for existence. The individual struggle favours physical vigour and mental ability ; but those races of men endowed with fellow-feeling and a spirit of far-seeing self-sacrifice alone are capable of forming a strong and homogeneous people. Both kinds of struggle have played their part in the growth and decay of the races of mankind, and in the rise and fall of successive civilizations. Both have been necessary in the past, while man has been pressing onwards, blind and deaf to the meaning and tendency of the ceaseless strife around him.

There is an obvious though superficial antagonism between some manifestations of the moral qualities when developed and the full action of the purifying pains in lo THE FAMILY AND THE NATION

which they were brought forth. Individual and national destruction and replacement still form a potent factor in the physical and mental evolution of the race. Yet our modern tenderness shrinks more and more from the sight of individual suffering. It urges forward all agencies for the amelioration of the lot of the weak who have failed in the struggle, whether individual or national, and would fain uphold those that in more callous ages would have gone under.

Of late years, the means of keeping alive the falling and fallen have grown with ever-increasing speed. Each advance in medical skill, in knowledge of pathology or hygiene, each new moral effort to cope with external evil, results in prolonged life for the members of weak and unsound stock, and still more significant, a lessened mortality among their children. It is not that the pressure of life gets less, but that the consequences of that pressure are prevented from producing effects that are of selection value.

There is often an inclination to deprecate the struggle for life, an endeavour to minimize its effects, to mourn with the loser rather than to rejoice with the winner. But, against the severity and hardship of the lifestruggle, must be set the excitement of the battle, the energy and resource it calls forth, the triumph of success, and, through these inducements to exertion, the perpetual selection and survival of the finer varieties of the race.

It is well to mark that the danger of lessened natural selection is, in our stage of civilization, accompanied by a new-won appreciation of the issues at stake. The social organism has grown conscious of its own existence and of the agencies which are moulding it for better or for worse. We have become like gods, knowing good and evil. Shall we have the patience and insight to study the problem with a singleminded desire for truth ? If we find a solution, shall we have the courage and steadfastness to apply it firmly and temperately to the social organism ? It may be that the necessary means will run counter to some forms of prevailing sentimentalism, that by-product of the growth in our moral conscience. But moral conscience itself must not be identified with a halfhysterical haste to stop pain or inconvenience at all costs. A sane moral conscience looks beyond, and determines that the best elements both in man and in mankind shall be free to grow and the worst elements shall be repressed whatever stands in the way.

It is possible that the modern desire to alleviate distress and to prolong life in all circumstances is to be traced, in part at aU events, to a decay in the old conception of life as a probationary training ground, and the failure to find any worthy ideal to take its place. To those who have no belief in a future existence, this life too often tends to become a banquet in which some feast and others fight for the crumbs. To such minds, pending the revival of a deeper faith, the thought of the future welfare and improvement of the nation or the race may supply the ideal necessary for a worthy life. Those, on the other hand, who regard each man's frame as the dwelling-place of an immortal soul, will feel more the awful responsibility that it is ours to determine, by our individual and corporate action, whether or no the bodies and minds of succeeding generations shall be fit temples for such sparks of the divine, fit habitations in which they can expand' and develop till they are worthy of a sublimer sphere. We cannot fix exactly the bodily or mental character of any future individual, but we can (and do whether we will or no) control the average future qualities of the race, both in mind and body. Individually we can deal only with probabilities ; statistically we are responsible for certainties.

Let us pass then to inquire how far selection, natural or artificial, has been the means of developing the race, how far it is still acting and in what directions, what will be the effect of that action, and whether it can be controlled in any way to favour the preponderance of all the best physical, mental, and moral qualities.

For selection to play its part in any community, three conditions are necessary. Firstly, the individuals which compose the race must vary one from the other. Secondly, those variations must tend to be inherited, so that the individuals possessing them tend to transmit them to their oiFspring. Thirdly, the individuals with certain kinds of variation must reproduce themselves faster than the rest of the community.

Unless individuals vary, selection has nothing to work upon. Unless the variations be such that they are transmitted to descendants, its work produces no effect. Hence our first inquiry is directed to the laws of variation in mankind, in regard both to physical and to mental qualities ; our second to the transmission of variations from parent to offspring — the central problem of heredity.

As we have said, the character of a nation is but the average character of the individuals composing it. If one section of the community reproduce itself faster than others, its essential qualities hasten with ever-increasing speed to permeate the whole. The qualities of that section become the dominating qualities of the race, its peculiarities become the normal characteristics of the nation. Therefore our third condition leads to a study of the relative birth-rate in different classes and among difFerent types of the people.

Finally, we must turn to a consideration of the causes and effects of a selective birth-rate, and inquire how far the present social conditions are favouring or impeding the more rapid reproduction of all good and noble qualities.

Chapter II The Scientific Study Of Variation And Heredity

Before we pass to the problems of variation and heredity in man, it is necessary to trace the progress of our knowledge of those problems in the lower animals, and in the vegetable kingdom. Here experiment is possible, and consequently more definite results have been reached. With these results in mind, it is easier and more instructive to examine the purely observational information that is available about mankind than it would be without such guides.

In the subject as left by Darwin, the greatest need was further light on the variations and mutations necessary for natural selection to have something to work upon. Two possibilities were recognised. Selection might act on the small variations found among the individuals of a species otherwise homogeneous — on the greater speed of an antelope with legs an inch longer than the average of his kind ; or large, discontinuous variations might arise, and the "sports" or individuals possessing them might make large steps towards forming new species at once, if the variations were favourable to survival.

Although Darwin recognised that "sports" had been the origin of many new varieties of domestic animals and plants, he favoured the view that to small or continuous variations we must look for the chief cause of evolution. But difficulties in that theory soon appeared. A fully developed organ may prove most useful, when in a rudimentary stage it would have no effect on survival. Unless it arose per saltum, natural selection would never cause it to develop. Again, a small variation would be bred out of the race, unless the individuals possessing it became sterile when mated with the older type, or refused so to mate.

Such difficulties, together with a careful study of sudden mutations by de Vries, Bateson, and others, have led to a revision of the purely selectionist view. Many biologists hold nowadays that discontinuous variations, or " sports," have contributed extensively to the separation of species. Such " sports " tend to transmit their properties to their offspring ; they certainly arise in some cases ; natural selection would undoubtedly act on them in one way or the other as they were useful or deleterious to their possessors ; they can hardly help being a true cause of evolution. Whether the small or continuous variations are also effective remains an open question.

Small variations may be divided into two kinds : those which are innate ; those which are acquired. Innate variations tend to be inherited according to laws we shall study below. But much discussion has arisen about the possibility of the inheritance of acquired characters.

The inheritance of such characters was generally assumed, until Weismann called attention to the fact that no definite and satisfactory evidence was forthcoming to support that assumption.

Moreover, it was pointed out by Weismann that the germ cells of organisms seem to be independent of the rest of the body. They descend from the germ cells of the parents, and are not affected directly by changes going on in the individual to whom they belong. But such a conclusion seems difficult to extend to indirect action, and other biologists hold that indirect action may occur, and the germ cells undergo slight changes in consequence of acquired modifications — enough at any rate to affect the properties of the race when the action is prolonged over many generations. Still, it seems that, if acquired characters are transmitted at all, it can be only to a small fractional extent. They can have much less influence in modifying the race than was heretofore supposed. More could be done in a few generations by selecting and favouring the reproduction of innate qualities, which certainly are transmitted, than could be effected in long ages by trying to modify the stock through the direct action of use and environment — even if these influences produce any effect at all.

Moreover, the large discontinuous variations, which are found in " sports " and tend to be transmitted by heredity, are never acquired characters. No man by taking thought can add a cubit to his stature, though by physical culture he may possibly add a fraction of an inch. Still less can he produce by exercise one of the definite structural changes which occasionally appear as sports. Whatever view about the occasional and partial transmission of acquired characters may ultimately prevail, it seems certain that such transmissions must play a part in evolution small compared with that due to the selection of those innate variations which are readily hereditable. Inborn qualities are immeasurably more useful to the race than those induced or developed by environment, though to the individual, who has received his allotted share of qualities, the favourable opportunity for developing them is still of the utmost importance. But the power of handing them on, used or unused by the individual, is the true safeguard of the moral and spiritual grandeur of a nation —

All I could never be All men ignored in me This I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

While Darwin was developing his theory of the method of evolution, Gregor Mendel, Abbot of Brann, was making experiments on the hereditary transmission of definite qualities in peas, and had invented a means of quantitative research which, rediscovered in later day?, has modified our conceptions of inheritance.

It was recognized^, as for example by Galton, that two modes of inheritance were known. The offspring might acquire from its two parents a certain quality in blended amount, as Mulattos are intermediate in complexion between their Negro and European forebears ; or, on the other hand, the offspring might resemble one or other parent exclusively, as the children of a man and a woman are either boys or girls but no intermediate variety.

The latter mode of inheritance was found by Mendel to hold for certain qualities in peas, and to follow definite laws of inheritance. His results have been extended to other species of plants and animals by recent observers.

As an example of Mendelian principles let us take the case of the Andalusian fowl, studied by Bateson and Punnett. Black and splashed white Andalusians each breed true when mated together ; we possess then a definite splashed white breed and a definite black breed. If we cross a white bird with a black, the resulting chicks are all blue. So far the result seems simple, and we are inclined to regard blue in these fowls as an intermediate hybrid colour between black and white. But, if we breed further generations exclusively from these blue birds, we find that they do not breed true to type — no definite blue race can be established. Of a large number of birds with two blue parents, on the average, half will be blue, one quarter will be white, and one quarter black. Now, these white and black birds, though derived from blue ancestors, will once more breed true, just as did the white and black of the first generation. By mating together, two white birds, we can re-establish a pure splashed-white strain, which shows no sign of its blue ancestry ; and similarly we can recover a pure black strain, uncontaminated by blue to any number of generations.

If we think what these phenomena must mean in the hereditary process, we are led to conclude that the germ cells of the blue birds are not hybrids like the birds themselves. Half the germ cells of a blue bird must be pure " white " in character, half pure " black." Then, when two blue birds pair, it is an even chance whether two unlike cells meet and develop into a blue chick, or two like cells join to form either a pure black or a pure white bird. We may perhaps regard the mixture of strains, which we find in the germ cells of the hybrid blue fowl, as analogous to the mixture of black and white threads which make up certain grey cloths. To the eye the cloth looks grey, but in reality there has been no true mingling. The threads may be picked out again into a heap of white ones and a heap of black. In the Andalusian fowl, black and white are definite Mendelian properties, which are segregated from each other in the germ cells and never mix. Not all properties show these phenomena. In some cases the hybridization seems to extend to the germ cells themselves, and Mendel's principles do not apply. But the possibility of such simple relations should never be lost sight of, when examining data of inheritance. Moreover, some cases of mixed heredity may be explained by the simultaneous action of several pairs of qualities, each alone definitely Mendelian, which, acting together, are difficult to disentangle.

The Andalusian fowl illustrates the simplest form of Mendelian principles. In other cases the hybrid, which corresponds with the blue bird in the fowls, resembles outwardly one or other of the parents, and only betrays its hybrid nature in the appearance of its descendants.