CHAPTER V
THE LAWS OF HEREDITY
We have now established the bases for a practicable eugenics program.
Men differ; these differences are inherited; therefore the make-up of
the race can be changed by any method which will alter the relative
proportions of the contributions which different classes of men make to
the following generation.
For applied eugenics, it is sufficient to know that mental and physical
differences are inherited; the exact manner of inheritance it would be
important to know, but even without a knowledge of the details of the
mechanism of heredity, a program of eugenics is yet wholly feasible.
It is no part of the plan of this book to enter into the details of the
mechanism of heredity, a complicated subject for which the reader can
refer to one of the treatises mentioned in the bibliography at the close
of this volume. It may be worth while, however, to outline in a very
summary way the present status of the question.
As to the details of inheritance, research has progressed in the last
few years far beyond the crude conceptions of a decade ago, when a
primitive form of Mendelism was made to explain everything that
occurred.[43] One can hardly repress a smile at the simplicity of those
early ideas,--though it must be said that some students of eugenics have
not yet outgrown them.
Pages:
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176