A grave responsibility rests on biologists in respect of the
general question, since wrong answers lead, among other effects, to
wrong belief about social affairs and to disastrous social actions."
Biologists certainly have not shirked this "grave responsibility" during
the last 30 years, and they have, in our opinion, satisfactorily
answered the general question. The answer they give is not the answer
Herbert Spencer gave.
But the popular mind frequently lags a generation behind, in its grasp
of the work of science, and it must be said that in this case the
popular mind is still largely under the influence of Herbert Spencer and
his school. _Whether they know it or not_, most people who have not made
a particular study of the question still tacitly assume that the
acquirements of one generation form part of the inborn heritage of the
next, and the present social and educational systems are founded in
large part on this false foundation. Most philanthropy starts out
unquestioningly with the assumption that by modifying the individual for
the better, it will thereby improve the germinal quality of the race.
Even a self-styled eugenist asks, "Can prospective parents who have
thoroughly and systematically disciplined themselves, physically,
mentally and morally, transmit to their offspring the traits or
tendencies which they have developed?" and answers the question with the
astounding statement, "It seems reasonable to suppose that they have
this power, it being simply a phase of heredity, the tendency of like to
beget like.
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