Scott Nearing

“ Throughout the United States, the watchword of the people has been opportunity. Without opportunity, the people perish—hence opportunity must stand waiting for each succeeding generation. In the turmoil of commercial life, in the ebb and flow of the immigrant tide, the reality has been frequently lost; yet the ideal of opportunity remains as firmly rooted as ever.
[Pg 88] The worth-whileness of men, the social control of the environment, and a free opportunity for the development of the individual constitute the basis for social advance in the United States. The ideal is firmly rooted ”

“ If he has a transmissible defect, he must have no offspring. This seems but reasonable—an obligation to bring no unnecessary misery into a world where so much already exists. But the individual—free to choose—must go one step further, and in his selection, must seek a mate with the qualities which are complementary to his own.
Looked at from the standpoint of society, there is no single choice which compares in importance to the choice of a mate; for on that choice depend the qualities which this generation will transmit to the next, and from which the next generation must create its follower. ”

“ After all, why should not society educate its youth to a sense of wisdom in mating? The United States spends each year some four hundred millions of dollars in public education, teaching children to read, to spell, to sew, to draw. The importance of these studies is obvious, yet, from a social standpoint, they cannot compare in significance with such training in the laws of heredity and biology as will insure wise choice in mating. ”

“ Given ten talents of [Pg 89] opportunity, are we as a nation worthy to be made the rulers over ten cities? Provided with the raw stuff of a Super Race, can we mold it into “A mightier race than any that has been?” The past worked with things: the present works with men. “We stand at the verge of a state of culture, which will be that of the depths, not, as heretofore, of the surface alone; a stage which will not be merely a culture through mankind, but a culture of mankind. ”

“ They possess the qualities of the Super Man—physical normality, mental capacity, aggressiveness, concentration, sympathy and vision; and, above all, we now understand that they are not the offspring of the gods, but the sons of men and women whose combined parental qualities inevitably produced Super Men. The Super Man is not a theory, nor an accident, but a natural product of natural conditions.
Though the Super Man may be met with occasionally in modern society, and though the qualities ascribed to him are manifest everywhere among those who have had an opportunity for their development ”

“ Modern society is a garden of which the products are men and women. The sowing, weeding, cultivating—carried forward through social institutions—determines by its character whether the race shall decay, as other races have done, or progress toward the Super Man.
The science of social gardening—Social Adjustment—has been given a great impetus, in recent years, by the increased knowledge of the relative influences of heredity and environment in determining the status of the individual. This knowledge has led us to a belief in men. ”

“ The past worked with things: the future, rising higher in the scale of civilization, must work with men—with the plastic, [Pg 19] living clay of humanity. As Solomon long ago said, “He that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that taketh a city.” The men of the past built cities and took them. They brought the forces of nature into subjection and remodeled the world as a living place for humanity, yet, save for a shadow in Rome and an echo from Greece, there is scarcely a trace in history of a consistent attempt to evolve nobler men. ”

“ Aggressiveness and concentration are methods rather than ends, and can be made a part of every game, every competition, and every study, so that the child absorbs them as he absorbs the atmosphere, without knowing that they become a part of his being. Whether the school can instill sympathy and inspire vision is a question that the future alone must decide. Both may be given by individual teachers, and both may be possible to the school, though, if the home is doing its work, these things will come more effectively there than through the school. ”

“ The wise gardener considers environment as well as heredity. By sowing choice [Pg 45] seeds in well prepared soil, he ensures the excellence of his crop.
Modern society may well be compared to a garden. The plants are living, moving beings, with some freedom to act on their own initiative. Moreover, it is they who make and tend the gardens in which they grow. Like the gardener in the story, they must look to environment as well as to heredity. The seed bed must be carefully prepared, and the young plants, as they appear, must be given all the attention which science makes possible. ”

“ Eugenics is indeed one means of race [Pg 38] salvation, yet what care do we take to perfect eugenic measures? “If through sheer chance, some great mathematician is evolved one day out of the crowd, the state—who should be ever on the watch for such events and whose main care should be to preserve and increase such sources of light, progress and national glory—does nothing to protect the man of genius against care, disease or anything likely to shorten life nor to multiply the splendid thinking machine.” [14] A great state must have for its component parts great men and women. ”

“ Positive Eugenics is the science of race building through wise mating. “As long as ability marries ability, a large proportion of able offspring is a certainty.” [11] What prospective parent does not fondly imagine that his children will be at least near-great? Yet how many individuals, in their choice of a mate, set out with the deliberate intention of securing a life partner whose qualities, when combined with his own, must produce greatness? ”

“ They no longer preëmpted the whole world—present and future, as well as past, but, freed from romance, they ranged themselves in the form of a foundation upon which the structure of civilization is building. The successive steps in human achievement, from the use of fire to the harnessing of electricity, constituted a process of evolution creating “a stage where every man must play his part”—a part expanding and broadening with each succeeding generation ”

“ If you can guarantee such a man an income of three dollars a week for each child, in addition to the nine dollars for his wife and himself, you may well air your views regarding a Super Race; but until your lowest income is high enough to guarantee the necessaries of life to a family of five; or until the state guarantees an income to each child in its early life, “You may as well go stand upon the beach and bid the main flood bate his usual height,” as to demand that a man, working for starvation wages, provide a home in which Super Men can be reared. ”

“ The fields, white to harvest, are awaiting the laborers who, building on the discoveries and inventions of things in the past, will so mold the human clay of the present that the future may boast a society of men and women possessing the qualities of the Super Race. ”

“ That they exist he must admit, but that their abilities would have come to a much more complete development in a congenial environment he clearly demonstrates.
The rigorous persecution of the Middle Ages eliminated any save the most daring thinkers. Men of science, who presumed to assert facts in contradiction of the accepted dogmas of the Church, were ruthlessly silenced, hence the ages were very dark. The nineteenth century, on the contrary, through its cultivation of science and scientific attainments, has reaped a harvest of scientific achievement unparalleled in the history of the world. ”

“ Lightning, famine and pestilence are, to the primitive man, the threatening of a wrathful god; but to the progressive thinker they are merely forces which must be utilized or counteracted in the work of human achievement.
As a boy, I believed my opportunities to be limited by the achievements of the past. As a man, I see in these past achievements not hindrances, but the foundation stones which the past has laid down, upon which the present must build, in order that the future may erect the perfected structure of a higher civilization. ”

“ One could not be expected to take so frivolous a view of life, therefore you will in self defense take every possible precaution to suppress vandalism and thievery? Never, my dear sir, never! You must take every possible precaution to reduce the spirit of vandalism and of thievery. The acts are in themselves unconsequential—they are but the product of a diseased mind or an indifferent training. The spirit, here as elsewhere, is all important. ”

“ Through Positive Eugenics the fit may be induced to mate, and by combining their fitness in their offspring, to raise up each new generation out of the flower of the old. Negative Eugenics eliminates the unfit; Positive Eugenics perpetuates the fit.
The field of Negative Eugenics has been well explored. No question exists as to the transmission through heredity of feeble mindedness, idiocy, insanity and certain forms of criminality. “There is one way, only one way, out of this difficulty. Modern society ... must declare that there shall be no unfit and defective citizens in the State.” ”

“ The chief objective point of modern endeavor has been individual freedom of choice. The laissez-faire doctrine in commercial relations, democracy in politics, the natural philosophy and natural theology of the eighteenth century are all expressions of a belief in equality. When men are made free to choose, they are placed on a basis of equality, since they have a like opportunity to succeed or fail. The man who chooses rightly wins success—the man who chooses wrongly fails. ”

“ Primitive society demands the service of even its immature members. Children are adults before their childhood is well begun. Civilization, recognizing the possibility of self preservation through lengthened youth, has said to the child “Play.”
Long youth means long life. Play time—leisure—for the youth is the bone and sinew of a high standard maturity. Leisure in youth for play, leisure in mature [Pg 80] life for reflection and creation—these are two of the most precious gifts of civilization to social progress.
The United States has led the nations in providing opportunity for leisure time. ”

“ The environment shapes the man. Yet, equally, does the man shape the environment. A high standard individual may [Pg 54] be handicapped by social tradition, but, in like manner, progressive social institutions are inconceivable in the absence of high standard men and women.
The institutions of a society—its homes, schools, government, industry—are created by the past and shaped by the present. Institutions are not subjected to sudden changes, yet one generation, animated by the effort to realize a high ideal, may reshape the social structure. ”

“ The home as an institution must provide for the Super Man enough food, clothing and shelter to guarantee him a good physique; enough training in coöperation and mutual helpfulness to give him the vision of a Super Race; and a supply of enthusiasm sufficient to enable him to work with increasing energy for the fulfillment of those things in which he believes. In order that the home may supply these things, it must have an income sufficient to provide all of the necessaries and some of the comforts of life. ”

“ Vision shows itself in ideals.
The energy to do; and the mental grasp to appreciate; together with the capacity to choose efficiently, furnish the basis for achievement. Achievement, however, is [Pg 21] not in itself a guarantee of worth unless its course is shaped by sympathy and directed toward a goal which is determined by the prophetic power of vision. Such are the characteristics which, combined in one individual, insure completeness of life. About them, philosophers have reasoned and poets have sung. They are the acme of human perfection—the ideal of individual attainment. ”

“ Perhaps American commercial aggressiveness is equal to the military aggressiveness of the Romans, the early Germans, and the followers of Attila. We have concentrated most of our efforts upon industry, yet even here, our concentration is no greater than that of the poets of the Elizabethan era, or the religious zealots of the Middle Ages. Our sympathy with beauty is at so low an ebb that we fail even to approach the standard of past ages. Neither in art, in sculpture, nor in poetry do our achievements compare with those of the earlier Mediterranean civilizations ”

“ The youth of the race is in women’s keeping. They shape the child clay. The twig is bent, the tree is inclined by women’s hands.
The emancipation of woman means her individualization. Both in primitive custom and in early law her individuality is merged in that of the man. “Wives,” wrote Paul, “be obedient unto your husbands, for this is the law.” Mohammedan women wear veils that they may not be seen; Chinese women bind their feet that they may not escape; the women of continental Europe spend their lives in ministering to the comfort of their liege lords. ”