THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF EUGENICS

http://iapsop.com/archive/materials/american_journal_of_eugenics/

Eugenics.

Of all sciences, that called “eugenics”—in plain English, right genera­ tion—easily takes first place in point of importance. The husbandman’s first concern is the seed. Experience has taught him that he cannot expect a paying crop of com, of potatoes, of melons, or what not, from inferior seed, bulbs or grafts.

First the seed; then the soil; then heat, light and moisture, and lastly the cultivation, stirring the soil, etc.

The seed stands for heredity. The other factors may be included under the general term environment.

So likewise the live-stock raiser. The breeder of horses, cattle, pigs, dogs, fowls, etc., looks well to the parentage, the pedigree of the quad­ rupeds, the birds, he purposes to invest his time, labor and money in, else he knows he cannot expect satisfactory returns.

And so likewise in raising human beings. Common sense and the experience of all time show us that human beings are no exception to the rule that like begets like, and that although the human is a much more complex and differentiated animal than is the horse, the dog, the pig, the barnyard fowl, yet to the eye of the expert the influence of heredity in the formation of character is as marked, is as all-powerful, as universal on the human plane as on that of the so-called lower animal, or in the veg­etable, the plant world.

Human beings are simply quadrupeds erected on their hind legs; neither more nor less. Whatever of intellect or of psychic power is found among women and men is found also, in different degree, among horses, dogs, birds, reptiles, etc.

I well know that these views are called materialistic and pessimistic by many; not only by those who still uphold the special creation theory, but by some who claim to have broken the fetters of medieval superstitions and accepted, in a general way, the evolution theory of the cosmos; but, as I see it, there is nothing pessimistic, nothing sad or degrading in the philosophy that makes man a “brother to the worm.” The chief differ­ence between man and the worm, between man and the quadruped, between man and certain tribes of insects—bees, ants, etc., etc.—seems to be that the so-called lower orders possess more of the psychic, more of the intui­tional, a closer rapport with the “soul of things,” with the unseen and unheard spirit side of life, than do the arrogant “lords of creation,” the human bipeds.

This is not the place to elaborate the arguments pro or con between those who adhere to the theory of a special creation and special attributes for man, and the evolutionists or naturalists. I prefer simply to state that, while not dogmatically asserting the oneness of all life, I do most emphatically accept the “monistio” theory of the cosmos; the theory that whatever applies to life on the quadruped plane, the insect plane, or even the vegetable plane, applies to man also,—the homo,—only differing in degree, and hence I come back to the time-honored maxim that “like begets like,” and to the statement that if we would improve organized forms of life on any plane we must look first to heredity—that is, to the seed; and to the conditions surrounding prenatal life—the sprouting of the seed; which sprouting or quickening is the connecting link between heredity and environment.

And this means Eugenics. Moses Harman