The evidence that the germ-plasm can be permanently modified does not
warrant the belief; and such results, if they exist at all, are not
large enough or uniform enough to concern the eugenist.
Pre-natal culture and telegony were found to be mere delusions. There is
no justification for hoping to influence the race for good through the
action of any kind of external influences; and there is not much danger
of influencing it for ill through these external influences. The
situation must be faced squarely then: if the race is to be improved, it
must be by the use of the material already in existence; by endeavor to
change the birth-and death-rates so as to alter the relative proportions
of the amounts of good and bad germ-plasm in the race. This is the only
road by which the goal of eugenics can be reached.
CHAPTER III
DIFFERENCES AMONG MEN
While Mr. Jefferson, when he wrote into the Declaration of Independence
his belief in the self-evidence of the truth that all men are created
equal, may have been thinking of legal rights merely, he was expressing
an opinion common among philosophers of his time. J. J. Rousseau it was
who made the idea popular, and it met with widespread acceptance for
many years.
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