Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 79.djvu/406

402 attributed to the germ-cell. All other traits can be traced directly or indirectly to social or nutritive alterations. Heredity is the one power that can transform man into a superman and we must rely on it to reach this higher level. The actual problems we face to-day are those of degeneration. We must get rid of the subman before we can rise to the superman's level. The subman is made by environment as truly as the superman will be made by heredity. We must therefore act through objective agencies until the normal in men has been evoked. Are social traits acquired or natural? Is degeneration in man due to bad environment or to heredity? These are the problems which must be fairly faced and definitely solved before it can be justly claimed that man is freer from environmental control than are the lower forms of animal life.