In the first place, it must be remembered that these traits, on whose
importance in the pedigree we have been insisting, are responsible not
only for whatever the individual is, but for whatever society
is,--whatever the race is. They are not personal matters, as C. B.
Davenport and H. H. Laughlin well point out; "they come to us from out
of the population of the past, and, in so far as we have children, they
become disseminated throughout the population of the future. Upon such
traits society is built; good or bad they determine the fate of our
society. Apart from migration, there is only one way to get socially
desirable traits into our social life, and that is reproduction; there
is only one way to get them out, by preventing the reproduction. All
social welfare work is merely education of the germs of traits; it does
not provide such germs. In the absence of the germs the traits can not
develop. On the other hand, it is possible with difficulty, if possible
at all, by means of the strongest repressive measures merely, to prevent
the development of undesirable hereditary traits. Society can treat the
delinquent individual more reasonably, more effectively, and more
humanely, if it knows the 'past performance' of his germ-plasm.
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