Simon N. Patten

“ They become the old maids and business women, or, if married, are the source of the much-discussed race suicide. The long-faced woman disappears in these ways in each generation, to reappear in the next as the pure element in the mixed or oval-faced marriages. We can, thus, have a perpetual succession of long-faced women, even if they have no children. The round-faced woman, on the other hand, is broad-hipped and makes flesh rather than bone. Men prefer her to her long-faced sister. ”

“ Cowardice, deceit, falsehood, humility and other traits are clearly the outcome of one fundamental variation. The supplanting of fear by courage would transform a whole civilization, and modify its best known characteristics. Dynamic variations are thus like environmental modifications. Groups of traits change or appear together, due to one primary cause, innate or external. Types are thus formed that differ in a thousand ways and yet are readily referred back to a few ultimate causes. ”

“ A direct connection is assumed between the visible trait to be favored or eliminated and the characters of the germ cell that are passed on from generation to generation. If the character make the visible trait, rigid selection based on the elimination of traits is the only way of ridding the race of undesirable traits. Improving the condition of individuals would help them, but if traits do not influence characters, such betterments would have no effect on coming generations. ”

“ Paces of men are formed by each external change which continues long enough to compel an adjustment to it. Each single visible trait does not have an independent cause. If liquor drinking is correlated with greater physical vigor in men, an elimination of drinkers is also an elimination of vigor, and would result in race deterioration. Social causes are simpler and deeper seated than are social effects. A study of the types of men and of the relation between the various groups of visible traits must therefore precede attempts to modify races by the elimination of single traits. ”

“ I use this contrast not because it is the only one that might be selected, but because it permits of a threefold division more readily then the others. An additional reason is that the round-faced and the longfaced women are now popular contrasts. The frontispieces of magazines give us the round-faced girl as the approved type of female beauty, while the suffragette, the old maid, the intellectual woman and the freak are pictured with long faces and protruding jaws. ”

“ Alcohol does not, to any extent, eliminate women, and the round-faced type married to long-faced men would continue to breed round-faced men. We could thus have one fourth of the men of each generation die from alcohol, and still have no immunity arise to protect the race.
In contrast to this, a disease like tuberculosis mainly affects the long-faced type. Instead of letting elimination operate against them, it would seem more fitting to put them in upland regions and dry climates where they would not suffer from this disease. ”

“ In men the sweets and the meats are causes that bring out this difference between the chewers and suckers. Another like contrast is between the mouth breathers and the nose breathers. We speak of breathing as a habit, and yet different habits would not tend to be formed if muscular differences did not exist. Each activity is the outlet of energy, which tends to express itself through bodily mechanisms. The strong grows at the expense of the weak; each difference in bodily powers tends to develop a type. ”

“ The two types of men differ somewhat in their dynamic characters, but more in the environmental modifications which climate, food and occupation have created. The upland types are tall, bony, narrow-chested with well developed lower faces. They breathe through the nose and eat hard foods. The lowland types are short, thick set, live on soft foods, and use large quantities of coarse or liquid foods. They have a poorly developed lower face, and breathe through the mouth. The lowland races are doubtless the older type and represent the primitive characteristics of men. ”

“ Most visible traits are modifications in individuals, and not variations in germ cells. Modifications are acquired characters due to the action of the environment, social and physical, which would not appear in children if the environment were radically altered. Chastity, thrift or temperance might readily be transformed into their opposites with no other changes than the environment imposes. These traits reappear for many generations in certain families, and seem to be inborn, but we have only to make a radical change of environment to see them displaced by their opposites. ”

“ Diseases also contribute their share towards this double elimination. Some, like tuberculosis, work against the upland type, while the fevers and alcohol weed out the lowlanders. The action of this double elimination can be shown by using the Mendelian law of crosses. When parents of mixed breeds unite, the children are one fourth pure of each pure type and one half of the mixed type. If none of the pure types survived, the next generation, being children of the mixed type, would again be one fourth of each of the pure types and one half of the mixed type. ”

“ Like differences are observed in man, and they give a ready means by which the two types can be distinguished.
In the application of current biologic theories to the human race, we must face the fact that there are two points or centers of elimination. As the race moves down or into hot countries, the upland type or the mixed type in which it is dominant is eliminated, while an upward movement, or one into cold dry regions tends to weed out the lowland type and the elements that it has given to mixed breeds. ”

“ Civilization and culture perpetuate themselves through the permanence of social and economic conditions. Degeneration sets in with any slump of the forces that compel a constant repetition in each generation of the acts and thoughts of their immediate ancestors.
The eugenist concept of biologic development is that of a multitude of individual characters each of which becomes visible in specific external traits. Germ-cell changes are presupposed with each change in the statistical averages obtained by the measurement of individual parts or organs. ”

“ Elimination thus leads not to extermination of existing types, but to their perpetuation. If conscious elimination is to be put in operation, it must be made to act on men and women alike. This is extremely difficult, as we admire traits in women we despise in men, and we keep them in existence by this means. We do not, for example, like a deceitful man, but men condone or admire deceit in women. The round-faced woman reproduces her lower morality in the next generation, and elements of it get into men even if, as a masculine trait, we try to suppress it. ”

“ An oasis or an isolated upland valley would combine, both in food and climate, the elements on which the formation of the more vigorous type depended. Later comes the renewal contact with the lowland races and the descent of the northern nomad to the fertile lowlands as a conqueror. From this union come the mixed races that occupy the medium altitudes. The upland races can not go too far down south without facing extinction, while the lowland races have been unsuccessful in facing the rigor of dry, cold uplands. ”

“ An upland race, if in a dry region, has a purer and more bracing atmosphere, and hence does not need so much lung power. It must develop greater vigor and endurance, partly because of the cold and partly because of the game it chases and the cattle it herds. Its food is drier, harder and more condensed; hence a better development of the jaw and its muscles results; along with this come smaller stomachs, better digestion and fresher blood. A tall, narrow-chested man comes into being, who is in marked contrast with the short broad man of the lowland regions. ”

“ THE study of human types has fallen into disrepute because of the advance of exact science. Accurate measurements have displaced crude observations. In this way, the science of eugenics has been evolved with many earnest advocates who think the victories of physical science may be duplicated in social fields. ”

“ In each generation the pure breeds might be eliminated, and yet one fourth of the children of mixed parentage would be representatives of each pure type. Elimination could not wipe out a type under these conditions. ”

“ If types are formed in this way, single visible traits can not be altered unless a change is made in other traits that are due to the same cause. The changes from upland to lowland, from cold to hot climate, from damp to dry regions, or from meager to abundant food modifies many external traits at the same time. ”

“ My answer to these questions is that single defects should be remedied by action on the individual even if this remedy, say eye-glasses, must be applied to succeeding generations. It is only where we have a combination of many inherited characters in one family or group, thus forming an undesirable type, that elimination becomes a necessity. Every innate character is good ”

“ Some races and persons have a marked development of the lower face with prominent jaws and strong facial muscles. These people like hard foods, enjoy chewing their food, and, if possible, keep something in their mouth, gum or tobacco or the like, to exercise their jaws. ”

“ The tendency, therefore, is to perpetuate the short, thick-set women of the type that men admire.
Among men, however, the opposite tendency prevails. The tall, nervous, long-faced man has more mental vigor and moral control. The round-faced man lacks initiative, is governed by tradition, and readily accepts the subordination, exploitation and poverty that come with defeat. ”

“ Baseball players are noted examples of this habit; it indicates a surplus of energy and strong muscular development. It is equally plain that those with a weak lower jaw and muscles take readily to soft sweet foods, that they suck or gulp down rather than chew. ”

“ In these ways a complicated network of changes arise that are to be referred to ultimate changes in climate, food, health and activity. These causes create types differing in a thousand ways, physical and social. Types are easy to recognize, but hard to measure. ”

“ An illustration of this is the contrast between anabolism and katabolism, as is also the increased plasticity manifested in the prolongation of childhood. Plastic brain cells do not result in a single mental trait, but in a change in the whole range of mental activity. The races of slow maturity differ from those rapidly maturing in many traits, and yet they may all be the result of a single variation involving the increased plasticity of brain cells. ”

“ He suffers more from epidemic diseases and is a ready victim of dissipation. In civilized countries his lack of earning power forces him into the slums of cities, or into the less favored occupations in the country. ”

“ These typical differences are accompanied by minor traits, not always found in all of a given race, but often enough to indicate that they have the same general causes. Long heads and round heads represent dynamic changes, even if we can not trace them back to given climatic origins. ”