Chapter V: Section III: Sociology and Eugenics

THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL ELITE AND THE ECONOMIC ELITE.

(Abstract.)

By Professor Achille Loria,

_University of Turin._

Artificial selection could be perfectly applied to the human species, in which case marriages would be arranged between persons better endowed, physically and mentally, and the worse endowed would be excluded from marriage. But this selection encounters the gravest practical difficulties; because, if it is relatively easy to estimate the physical qualities of man, nothing on the other hand is harder than to estimate his mental qualities. A dynamometer of intelligence does not exist, and Galton's method of observing the points of merit of University graduates is very insufficient and fallible.

In face of these difficulties there naturally arises the idea of inferring the psycho-physical aptitudes of individuals from their social and economic position, or from their income, which is easily measured. In accord with this idea, it would be a question of acting so that marriages would be effected exclusively and predominantly amongst individuals provided with superior incomes, and to prevent, as far as possible, marriages between persons of inferior incomes, or of no income at all.

But all this would be plausible if there should be a real analogy between the economic élite, and the psycho-physical élite, or if the former were really a product of the latter. Now, this is precisely what I deny. The _economic élite_ is not in the least the product of the possession of superior qualities, but is simply the result of a blind struggle between incomes, which carries to the top those who, at the start, possess a larger income through causes which may be absolutely independent of the possession of superior endowments. (See my _Sintesi economica_--Paris, Giard et Briard, 1911.) Hence, nothing makes it impossible that the wealthier people should be precisely the worst endowed, physically and mentally, and this as a matter of fact happens in innumerable cases.

Besides, we have an indirect proof of this in the very results of selective processes as, until now, they are practised. And, in fact, conjugal selection to-day takes place precisely amongst individuals of the same class, or belonging to the same standard of income, so that persons of the upper classes always marry exclusively amongst each other. So then these marriages, which, according to the theory, ought to give more splendid results, give, on the contrary, more wretched results. Galton's same law of "return to the mean," or the fact that the descendants of persons of high class sometimes have inferior endowments as compared with the average of the race, could not be fulfilled if persons of the upper classes who marry with each other were really select persons, physically and mentally.

There would also be in this case a falling off from the super-normal qualities of an exceptionally gifted parent, but in that case the characters of the children would always be superior to those of the descendants of the lower classes. If this does not happen, if the children of the upper classes show qualities inferior to those of the average of children of the lower classes, this proves conclusively that married people of the superior classes were not in the least endowed with specially high aptitudes, but, on the contrary, presented the opposite characteristics. Thus, the same law of Galton, properly interpreted, shows the absolute independence of largeness of income and excellence of individual qualities, hence the absurdity and danger of Eugenics upon an economic foundation, such as many desire.

The researches of Fahlbeck upon the Swedish nobility, which show the rapid extinction of the upper classes who practise _Economic Eugenics_, is a further proof of the absence of any link between economic superiority and psycho-physical superiority; since if the wealthier people, who usually intermarry, were really the better endowed, their descendants would never show those phenomena of extinction which betray a leaven of inner degeneration.

I conclude that Economic Eugenics is already practised to-day upon a large scale, and hence it is already possible to form an accurate judgment upon its results--which are those of return to the mean--degeneration and extinction of race. Now, these same results show that the economically superior classes are not at all the best endowed, and often even degenerate, and that, therefore, the only method calculated to effect a conjugal selection which would be socially useful is not to unite in marriage the richer people, but individuals really possessing superior qualities, and to exclude from marriage those who do not possess them.

THE CAUSE OF THE INFERIORITY OF PHYSICAL AND MENTAL CHARACTERS IN THE LOWER SOCIAL CLASSES.

(Abstract.)

By Professor Alfredo Niceforo,

_Of the University of Naples._

The author has compared the physical, demographic, and mental characters of the upper and leisured classes with the same characters in individuals of the inferior and poor classes. He has made use of several methods: (1) A comparison between the well-to-do and the poor children in schools; (2) a comparison between individuals belonging to different professions; (3) a comparison between the rich and the poor quarters of the same city.

He has also studied 4,000 children of the schools of Lausanne; Italian peasants; conscripts of different countries, classified according to their occupation; and the rich and the poor quarters of Lausanne, Paris, etc.

He has found that individuals of the lower classes show a smaller development of stature, of cranial capacity, of sensibility, of resistance to mental fatigue, a delay in the period when puberty makes its appearance, a slackening in growth, a very large number of anomalies, etc.

The causes of these differences ascertained in comparing the two groups are of the _mesological_ and _individual order_.

Of the _mesological_ order because the conditions of life where men of the lower classes are forced to live constitute one of the causes of the deterioration of their physical and mental characters.

Of the _individual_ order because, thanks to biological variation, every man is born different from all other men, and men who are born with superior physical and mental characters tend to rise in the superior classes, while men who are born with inferior physical and mental characters tend to fall in the most wretched classes.

However, in studying the catalogues of measurements and observations, the author has found that in the mass of men belonging to the superior classes one finds a small number of men with inferior qualities, while in the mass of men forming the inferior classes one finds a certain number of men presenting superior characters.

It is between these two _exceptional_ categories that social exchanges should be made, allowing the best and most capable of the lower stratum to ascend, and compelling the unadapted who are found above to fall to the lower stratum.

THE FERTILITY OF MARRIAGES ACCORDING TO PROFESSION AND SOCIAL POSITION.

(Abstract.)

By M. Lucien March,

_Directeur de la Statistique Générale de la France._

Statistics of families furnish, perhaps, the most appropriate data for the examination of the factors which govern the productiveness of marriages or their sterility.

Statistics concerning the children born in the eleven and a half million French families, classed according to occupation, have been prepared in France for the first time as a result of the census of 1906. These statistics give information as to the number of children per family, either alive on the day of the census or previously deceased, in each occupation, for all the families in the whole country taken together, and for the different provinces. Further, a special investigation of the 200,000 families of employees and workmen in the public services has furnished more circumstantial details, which have enabled the number of children and number of deaths of children in a family to be brought into relation with the income of the head.

The results obtained by the method described above are the subject of this report. The effects of occupation, social position and income are analysed by means of co-efficients expressing the productiveness of marriages, after eliminating the influence of such factors as duration of marriage, age, and habitat, all of which may obviously affect the productiveness of a marriage.

These results confirm what has been learnt from previous researches of the fertility of different social classes, but they go further in that they show that the difference is not exclusively dependent on income.

In general there are more children per family in the families of workmen than in the families of employers, and the latter contain more than those of employees other than workmen. Further, one finds industries in which the number of children in the employers' families is larger than in the families of workmen in other industries. Thus, differences are introduced by the occupation. Industries employing many hands seem the more favourable to the production of large families, both among workmen and among employers. Agriculture, in which a large number of persons are engaged in France, does not seem to conduce to fertility. Fishermen and sailors in the merchant service, on the other hand, appear to form the class in which fertility is the most considerable.

The importance of the occupational factor is such that we could place its influence on the same plane as that of "concentration" of population, with which it is in close relation, since persons following certain classes of occupation, as, for instance, the members of the liberal professions, and clerks and other salaried employees are most numerous in towns.

It does not appear that in France casual and unskilled labourers, persons in the receipt of Poor Law relief, etc., are specially prolific. There is not thus in reality too much risk of seeing the renewal of the population carried out in a dangerous manner by its least valuable section. However, even among the working classes, the most highly paid occupations are not those among which one finds the greatest number of children.

The economic, social, or moral burden of children is a factor bound up in a complex manner, not only with the individual conditions of existence, but also with the transformations of society, progress in manners and customs, and the conception which one forms of life.

It is this burden which must be allieviated where allieviation would be most effective and produce the best results, in order to put a stop to a movement which may be dangerous to civilisation.

EUGENICS AND MILITARISM.

(Abstract.)

By Vernon L. Kellogg.

(_Professor in Stanford University, California._)

The claim that war and military service have a directly deteriorating influence through military selection on a population much given to militarism, has been clearly stated by von Liebig, Karl Marx, Herbert Spencer, Tschouriloff, Otto Seeck, David Starr Jordan, and others, not to mention the ever-anticipating Greeks. Military selection may be conceived to work disastrously on a population both through the actual killing during war by wounds and disease of the sturdy young men selected by conscription or recruiting, and also by the removal from the reproducing part of the population of much larger numbers of these selected young men both in war and peace times. Another phase of the racial danger from military service is the possibility of the contraction of persistent and heritable disease which may be carried back from camp and garrison with the return of the soldiers to the population at home.

As likely as seem all these and certain other anti-eugenic influences arising from military selection, the substantiation of their actual results on a basis of observed facts is necessary to give them real standing as eugenic arguments against militarism.

The writer is engaged at present in an attempt to find and expose certain actual results of military service and war that have direct relation to racial modification. His paper presents some pertinent facts and figures already gained. These facts are examined in the light of the criticisms of such men as Bischoff and Livi, who have recognized the weaknesses in military and hygienic statistics, and in the light of other opportunities for error both in the recording and the interpretation of the facts, which have suggested themselves to him. Also there has to be considered the possible reality of eugenic advantages from military selection. Seeck and Ammon believe they have discovered some.

The writer, holding in mind both the dangers of error and the possibility of eugenic advantage, believes himself nevertheless able to present certain definite facts showing considerable direct eugenic disadvantage in certain types of militarism.

EUGENICS IN PARTY ORGANIZATION.

(Abstract.)

By Roberto Michels,

_University of Turin, Italy._

An oligarchy is invariably formed in all political parties for reasons based partly on individual psychology, partly on crowd psychology, and partly on the social necessity of party organisation. Under the first head is grouped the individual's consciousness of his own importance, which with opportunity develops into the natural human lust for power, and, further, such individual qualities as native tact, editorial ability, and so on. Crowd psychology is characterised chiefly by the incompetence of the masses, their dependence upon traditional methods of party government, and their feeling of gratitude to leaders who have suffered for the cause. Finally, the necessity for party organisations grows with every increase of numbers and extension of functions. It is physically impossible for large party groups to govern themselves directly. All parties live in a state of perpetual warfare with opposing parties, and, if they are revolutionary in character, with the social order itself. Tactical considerations, therefore, and, above all, the necessity of maintaining a condition of military preparedness, strengthen the hands of the controlling clique within the party and render every day more impossible genuine democracy.

The selective or eugenic value of party organization is that it allows men gifted with certain qualities to rise above their fellows into positions of superiority, which, for the considerations set forth above, are more or less permanent. This value is of the greater importance because the opportunities for able and ambitious workmen to rise by the economic ladder to the rank of employers are rapidly disappearing, at any rate, in old countries.

The qualities necessary for a successful party leader are discussed. Briefly stated, they consist of oratorical ability, which is partly a psychical and partly a physiological and anatomical character; energy of will; superiority of intellect and knowledge; a depth of conviction often bordering on fanaticism and self-confidence, pushed even to the point of self-conceit. Also in many countries, as for instance Italy, physical beauty is important in helping a man to rise, while in rarer cases goodness of heart and disinterestedness influence the crowd by reawakening religious sentiments.

We have seen that some elements of the crowd are seized by the selecting-machine of the party organisation that raises them above their companions, increasing automatically the social distance between them and their followers. To put this automatical selecting-machine into action, certain individuals appear, possessing special physical and intellectual gifts that distinguish them spontaneously from the mass of the party.

THE INFLUENCE OF RACE ON HISTORY.

(Abstract.)

By W. C. D. and C. D. Whetham.

The history of Europe presents a long series of nations successively rising and falling in the scale of prosperity and influence. Such persistent alternations suggest a common cause underlying the phenomena. All history is the record of change. The outward change as recorded by the chronicler has probably its counterpart in unnoticed variations of the internal biological structure of the nation.

Most nations are composite in character. They contain two or more racial stocks, fulfilling different functions in the national life. It is probable that the proportion in which these stocks are present is not always constant. The variation in proportion is possibly the agent effecting the internal change in structure, which becomes manifest outwardly in the rise or decline of the nation.

The physical characters of the population of Europe during historic times indicate three chief races: (1) the Mediterranean, (2) the Alpine, (3) the Northern. The individuals of these races possess also distinct mental and intellectual attributes, and the history of Europe is fundamentally the story of the interaction of the three races.

It is suggested that the supreme power of Greece and Rome, each in its own direction, was due to the attainment of a fortunate balance between the social and political functions of the constituents of the nation, the directing power being supplied chiefly by the invaders of northern race, who formed the dominant class among the southern indigenous Mediterranean population. In each case, the northern elements grew gradually less, through such agencies as losses in war, the selective action of a differential birth rate, and by racial merging into the more numerous southern stock.

The outburst of artistic genius and intellectual pre-eminence which marked the Renaissance in North Italy may perhaps be due to a similar racial composition, the northern elements being supplied by the descendants of the barbarian invaders of the later Roman Empire.

Great Britain has also similar racial elements. The Mediterranean race, spreading up the shores of the Atlantic, enters largely into the composition of the people of the south-west. The northern element, immigrant from the shores of the Baltic and North Sea, is strongest in the east and north.

We know that there are now at work two influences affecting the average racial character of the English nation; (1) the increase in the urban population at the expense of the rural, (2) the voluntary restriction of the birth rate which affects certain sections of all classes more than others. It is probable that both these changes tend to favour selectively the southern racial elements at the expense of the northern. Eventually, the present structure of society may become unstable in consequence of this racial alteration, and the necessary readjustment, in its turn, will contribute a chapter to history.

SOME INTER-RELATIONS BETWEEN EUGENICS AND HISTORICAL RESEARCH.

(Abstract.)

By Frederick Adams Woods, M.D.,

_Harvard Medical School._

The relative influence of heredity and environment has long been a subject for debate, but, for the most part, such debates have not been profitable. It is true that heredity cannot be separated from environment if only one individual be considered; but as soon as we inquire into the causes of the differences between man and man, it is perfectly possible to gain real light on this subject, so important to the advocates of eugenics. Everything must be made a problem of differences. The mathematical measurements of resemblances between relatives close of kin will sometimes serve. At other times, the correlation co-efficient is of no avail, and only an intensive study of detailed pedigrees will bring out such differences as cannot be due to the action of surroundings.

History and genealogy both speak unmistakably for heredity. Men of genius have as many eminent relationships as the expectations of heredity demand. The same is true among the highest aristocratic classes, and is equally true under democratic government, as is proved by a study of the family history of those Americans whose names are in the Hall of Fame. History shows that about half of the early monarchs were not cruel or were not licentious. Alternative heredity can well account for that. Virtuous types have only slightly increased in numerical proportion. Environment cannot be very effective; but there are biological factors of a more hidden nature which are silently making for progress. Mental qualities are correlated with moral; and in the European dynasties the survivors have been generally the descendants of the morally superior.

Physical differences can also be demonstrated, coming in the course of generations. A study of the portraits of royal, noble, and other historical personages shows that the bony framework of the face, especially about the nose and eyes, has changed rapidly since the beginning of the sixteenth century.

In explaining the rise and fall of nations, gametic and personal causes can be measured and marked. All the evidence of history points to the power and importance of a very few great personalities--they themselves the product of inborn forces. These have been the chief causes of political and economic differences, but non-gametic (environmental) causation can be occasionally detected, and separated out; as, for instance, the modern scientific productivity in Germany and the proportionate intellectual activity among women in America. It is estimated that there are four hundred thousand books on history. These form an almost unworked mine of information, easily available to every student of eugenics. It is high time that the human record, so ancient in its beginnings, should be used to contribute to that most modern of sciences, the improvement of the human breed.

DEMOGRAPHICAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PROBLEMS OF EUGENICS.

(Abstract.)

By Dr. Corrado Gini,

_Professor of Statistics in the Royal University of Cagliari, Italy._

Tables of mortality relating to human beings with classification as to age, when compared with similar statistics relating to the equine species, show that man during the period of development has a much heavier death-rate. It is not possible to say whether in their natural state the higher kinds of animals possess a higher or lower death-rate during the period of development than when under domestication, but the second of the alternatives seems more likely. It remains to be determined whether the heavy death-rate during development which the human race shows in the comparison is a distinctive natural characteristic belonging to it, or whether it is rather the result of the more or less artificial circumstances in which man is born and reared.

The human race differs as regards reproduction and the rearing of its offspring from the higher species of animals in their natural state, chiefly in three ways: (_a_) In the case of the human race reproduction takes place at all times of the year, whilst the higher animals have one single period for reproducing, or, in some cases, two or three periods; (_b_) animals reproduce as soon as the organism becomes capable of reproduction, whilst in civilised human races as a rule a longer or shorter period elapses between the time when the individual becomes capable of reproduction and the time he actually begins to reproduce; (_c_) in civilised man the development of altruistic sentiments protects weak and sickly persons from the eliminating action of natural selection, and often enables them to take part in the procreation of future generations.

The paper of A. has for its object to examine closely these three arguments based upon very extensive data taken partly from demographic statistics and partly from researches made personally by him or which he caused to be made, especially in the Municipal Statistical Offices of Rome and Cagliari, and in the Obstetrical Clinic of Bologna. The principal results are here indicated.

A. The rule of a greater number of conceptions in Spring observed in temperate regions suffers notable exceptions in tropical and arctic regions. Hence there is a weakening of the idea that in it one should recognise the atavistic heritage of a special season for reproduction which the human race had originally shown, analogous to what one finds to-day in many species of animals. On the other hand, neither the frequency of multiple births, of miscarriages, or of stillbirths, nor the length of life of offspring nor their intellectual capacity show any correlation whatever with the season of conception. The frequency of stillbirths, however, and the length of life of the offspring show a clear correlation with the season of birth, in the sense that those born in temperate seasons show a lower rate for stillbirths and a greater length of life.

B. The age of the mother at the time of parturition does not show any regular influence on the size and weight of the child. It has a very sensible influence on the frequency of miscarriages and of stillbirths; this increases with the increase in age. The age of the mother at the time of marriage exercises a decisive influence upon the vitality of the offspring: the greater the age of the mother at the time of marriage the less will be the vitality of the children.

The age of the father at the birth of his child has some influence on the number of stillbirths among his children. This influence--at any rate above a given age--increases with the increase in the father's age. It can neither be disproved nor affirmed that the age of the father at the time of marriage has an influence upon the vitality of the children; it is certain, however, that if any influence of that kind exists it is much less intense than that exercised by the age of the mother.

There has also been an enquiry as to the effect upon the characters of the offspring exerted by (1) order of birth; (2) difference in age of the parents; and (3) the age of the woman at the first menstruation.

C. Persons who die at a more advanced age have children in greater number and endowed with greater length of life. For some classes of the unfit (mad, consumptives, suicides) it can be proved beyond question that the number of children born is less and their mortality greater than among married people generally. Those who die of heart disease or of cancer show a number of children slightly higher than the general average of married persons; but that can be attributed to the fact that their age at death is greater than the average age at death of married people.

MATERNITY STATISTICS OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND, STATE CENSUS OF 1905.

(Abstract.)

By Frederick L. Hoffman, LL.D., F.S.S.,

_Statistician of the Prudential Insurance Company of America._

As a contribution to the practical study of eugenics the decennial maternity statistics of Rhode Island are of exceptional interest and importance.

In 1905, of 36,766 native-born married women 26,329 (71.6%) were mothers, and 10,477 (28.4%) childless. Of 32,960 foreign-born married women 27,207 (82.5%) were mothers, and 5,753 (17.5%) childless. Contrasting these percentages, the fact requires only to be stated to emphasize its profound and far-reaching social as well as political significance.

Considered with reference to religious belief, 72.7% of Protestant and 80.3% of Roman Catholic married women were mothers. Of married women of Jewish faith 88.0% were mothers.

At ages 25-34, the proportion of native-born mothers having only one child was 35.1%, against 22.6% for the foreign-born; the proportion of mothers having from six to ten children was 6.8% for the native-born, against 12.9% for the foreign-born. At all ages a similar disproportion is apparent.

Vastly more important than the multitude of general social and economic facts are these statistics of what, for want of a better term, may be called _human production_, and which disclose what must be considered the most alarming tendency in American life. Granting that excessively large families are not desirable, at least from an economic point of view, it cannot be questioned that the diminution in the average size of the family, and the increase in the proportion of childless families among the native-born stock is evidence of physical deterioration, and must have a lasting and injurious effect on national life and character.