The steady convergence during the last quarter century of several lines of research has at last produced the conviction in the minds of thinking and well-informed men and women that society must pay attention to the question of human heredity for the sake of the future of the race. The older students had held to the idea that all men were of relatively equal responsibility for their acts, since all possessed free-will. Lombroso in his great work "The Delinquent," published in 1876, challenged this attitude. He and his followers known as the "Positive School of Criminologists" insisted that the criminals, aside from those whose offenses were accidental, were marked off from ordinary men by physical stigmata which indicated degeneration or a reversion to a more primitive type of humanity. Though their extreme claims do not appear warranted, there is a much more general acceptance of them in essence than there was at first and the attitude of the public towards the criminal is being steadily modified.

In America the investigation of the degenerate families of the Jukes in New York in the seventies, the Ishmaelites of Indiana in the nineties, the Kallikaks of New Jersey and the Sixties of Ohio in this decade has revealed the existence of a great army of more or less degenerate individuals reproducing generation after generation and causing an enormous expense by their crimes and their inability to care for themselves.

Meantime Galton and his followers have been studying the superior types of humanity and urging concerted efforts to improve the race stock. With this has come the emphasis which stock-breeding, and the production of desirable new varieties of plants and animals, together with the newer biology and the increased knowledge of heredity, has given to the desire to grapple with

human problems. The result is the movement known as 66 eugenics."

This movement has two very different sides, negative and positive. Negative eugenics is the attempt to stop the reproduction of the unfit. Naturally there is much division of opinion as to the meaning of this term, but no one doubts the unfitness of the feeble-minded, of the lower grades at least. It is suggested therefore that their reproduction be prevented. This may be done by the prohibition of marriage provided such prohibition be enforced. Inasmuch as they will procreate outside the family relationship, this in itself is not sufficient. It must be supplemented therefore either by a policy of segregation in institutions, particularly of women during the child-bearing years, for all who cannot be adequately protected at home, or by sterilization through a surgical operation. Such an operation is much more difficult in the case of the women than in the men, but the chief danger is from the former. To such a program objection is brought on two grounds. Certain religious institutions seem to feel that it is sacrilegious and that there is a divine right of procreation regardless of the type of children to be expected or the ability of the parents to care for them. The second argument is based on the fear that the power which this policy would lodge in some committee might be abused, that there is no agreement as to where the line should be drawn and that sexual immorality would be encouraged by the knowledge that children could not result. One who knows the feebleminded can only be amused at the last argument, for immorality on their part is solely a question of opportunity. That the upper limits of those to be so treated is hazy is admitted and only as evidence accumulated

from experience could other groups be included. Though these proposals are, as a matter of fact, part of the law in some twelve states, the movement for sterilization will not make much headway, probably, until the terrific cost of segregating the unfit is appreciated.

It is clear that many of the insane and those suffering from transmissible contagious disease, particularly those having venereal disease, should not marry and the movement to prohibit such marriages is growing. Such prohibition may be found in the laws of some states. It is to be expected that sooner or later a physical certificate will be required of all who contemplate marriage and in so far as men are concerned this is now the law in Wisconsin. It is foolish however to limit its application to men. If some such laws were enforced, the burden of the unfit might be greatly reduced in a couple of generations and the question of the extension to new classes would then be much simpler. It is too much to hope that such prohibitions will be extended to individuals of afflicted stock, themselves normal, much as the biologist may recognize the danger from them. The sterilization of criminals guilty of sexual offenses has often been urged, and actually carried out in a few instances, but such laws as exist are usually disregarded.

Negative eugenics is probably more generally practiced by individuals than is realized. There are many who do not marry because they know they come from neurotic stock and fear lest they have defective children. There are others who are careful to pick wife or husband from a family which has not shown in its history the same type of weakness. We may be able to accomplish a good deal if we can get intelligent people to consider this matter. Why should we not, for illustration, train the

girl of a family which has suffered greatly from tuberculosis, that she must never consider as a possible husband a man of similar ancestry? As a matter of fact we all know of such cases. I have used this illustration deliber

ately. We know that tuberculosis is not transmitted from mother to child before birth, ordinarily at least. Inasmuch as it is due to a specific organism it is not inherited. Yet different families living under the same environment show a different degree of resistance to it. Inasmuch as we are all certain to be exposed is it not the part of wisdom to combine non-resistant with resistant stocks as far as possible?

Positive eugenics involves the attempt to improve the race stock by the greater care in the selection of lifepartners. At present this is an ideal rather than a movement. It is generally misunderstood and ridiculed but one of these days will come into its own. To attempt to prohibit or compel the falling in love with a given individual is usually vain but it would seem possible to develop such standards that certain classes of people would be considered while others would not. As a matter of fact this is now done in many ways, but the basis of such discrimination is social rather than biological.

There is a marked difference between domestic animals and the human stock. The animals become more valuable to man as they become highly specialized. We breed them therefore for the qualities desired by us. Who shall determine what special types of humans are to be perpetuated? Do men exist for the sake of society, or society for the sake of men? We can imagine a civilization of specialized groups from the feeble-minded hewer of wood and drawer of water, the higher grade cook and housekeeper, the school teacher and lawyer, the musician

and inventor, up to the genius; each marrying and perpetuating his own qualities at the behest of some overlord, whose task it would be to keep the world going and maintain peace and order. We should have, however, a system of absolute slavery for most of the race. It is not likely that this ideal will appeal to us of today. We prefer rather a race of sound and normal men and women of general rather than specialized traits.

Recognizing then that any type of strength, like any type of defect, may be inherited, is this thing we call genius common or rare? Certain factors must be kept in mind in seeking an answer to this question. Disregarding for the moment the influence of the environment in producing genius, it is clear then that in all ages and places the general conditions of culture and the spirit of the people play a part. The great poets are those whose songs have come down to us in written form. How many equally great have been lost to us by the destruction of the records we know not. Neither do we know how many have lived, sung and died among peoples without written records. In all the ages past there must have been countless thousands of men and women of the highest possibilities like him who invented the bow and arrow or the art of fire making. Others live in the records merely because of some accidental discovery or chance deed, who in reality were not to be compared to many of their associates. Yet others very likely are honored because they stole or appropriated that which makes them famous. If our history is so full of great men whom existing enemies tried in vain to suppress, what of those who were suppressed? Were they all inferior in equipment, or has luck played a part? Furthermore, let us not forget the tendency to centralize our explanation of some great move