Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/24

 12 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

which they themselves have proceeded. Where a man has evolved from a humble class to a high form of mental work, and his life has attracted the feeling or affection of a lady who has evolved rather higher mental faculties than the rest of her family, there is danger. It happens very often that the parents of degenerate children are the best of their respective families. I do not go into any details, but I could give you a string of cases, straight off, to show how frequent it is among the families of men who have risen, that the first of all, if he is a male, is feeble-minded, or degenerate. There is also the great question of the girls, as well as the boys, in their personal evolution. It has been constantly said that one reason why apparently the girls' capacity is less than the boys' capacity for many sorts of work is that their mothers have not been educated. Now, I should like to ask Mr. Gallon whether the girls inherit through the mother or through the father. For myself, I extremely doubt the general view.

BY MR. ELDERTON.

An important item in the study of heredity is the heredity of disease ; and. if so, life-insurance offices might be of use with certain statistics. Certificates of death are given to them which are put away with the original proposal papers, filled up when the insurance was taken out, which state the cause of death of parents, brothers, and sisters, and their ages at death ; also their ages when the person effected the insurance, if they were still living. Locked up in that sort of information are many data for the study of heredity in relation to disease. From this source also might be thrown light on a question of great importance the correlation between specific diseases and fertility.

One point in conclusion : Dr. Hutchison spoke of the greater importance of environment, but in that he would hardly get actuaries to agree with him. Their observation, based on life-insurance data, would seem to show that environment operates as a mere modificatory factor after heredity has done its work.

BY BENJAMIN KIDD.

It is, I am sure, a peculiar satisfaction to have from Mr. Galton this important and interesting paper. No man of science in England has done more to encourage the study of human faculty by exac.t methods, and I hope the Sociological Society will endeavor to follow the example he has set us. The only item of criticism I would offer would be to say that we must not, perhaps, be sanguine in expecting too much at present from eugenics founded on statistical and actuarial methods in the study of society. We must have a real science of society before the science of eugenics can hope to gain authority. The point of Mr. Galton's paper is, I think, that, however we may differ as to other standards, we are, at all events, all agreed as to what constitutes the fittest and most perfect individual. I am not quite convinced of this. Much obscurity at present exists in sociological studies from confusing two entirely different things, namely, individual efficiency and social efficiency. Mr. Galton's fable of the animals will help me to make my meaning clear. It will be observed that he has considered the animals as individuals. If, however, we took a social type like the social insects, a con- tradiction which, I think, possibly underlies his example, might be visible. For instance, it is well known that all the qualities of the bees are devoted to attaining the highest possible efficiency of their societies. Yet these qualities are by no means the qualities which we would consider as contributing to a perfect indi- vidual. If the bees at some earlier stage of evolution understood eugenics, as we now understand the subject, what peculiar condemnation, for instance, would they have visited on the queen bee, who devotes her life solely to breeding? I am afraid, too, that the interesting habits of the drones would have received special condemnation from the unctuous rectitude of the time. What would have been thought even of the workers as perfect individuals with their undeveloped bodies and aborted instincts? And yet all these things have contributed in a high degree to social efficiency, and have undoubtedly made the type a winning one in evolution.

The example will apply to human society. Statistical and actuarial methods