Monogenism

“ Finally, we may conclude that when the principle of evolution is generally accepted, as it surely will be before long, the dispute between the monogenists and the polygenists will die a silent and unobserved death.
One other question ought not to be passed over without notice, namely, whether, as is sometimes assumed, each sub-species or race of man has sprung from a single pair of progenitors. With our domestic animals a new race can readily be formed by carefully matching the varying offspring from a single pair, or even from a single individual possessing some new character ”

“ But what becomes of their argumentation, if it be proved that all intermixtures are not eugenistic, that is to say, that certain mongrels are not between themselves indefinitely prolific; that other cross-breeds become sterile in the first generation; and, finally, that certain races are so little homogenesic, that the birth of cross-breeds of the first degree is more or less exceptional? If one of these propositions can be effectually established, the monogenists would have little cause to congratulate themselves for having appealed to physiology. ”

“ The main argument for monogeny has been that the different races of mankind are fertile among themselves. This is doubtless true to a great extent, and shows that these races have not diverged very far from their ancestral type. But the researches of Darwin and his successors have thrown a good deal of new light on the question of hybridity. Species can no longer be looked upon as separated from one another and from races by hard-and-fast lines, on one side of which is absolute sterility and on the other absolute fertility ”

“ The humanity of the future will be physically and mentally superior to the existing humanity, but the amelioration of the species ought not to aim at the equality of races and populations. These races and populations ought not to lose their acquisition of particular adaptations to different conditions of existence.
A science of universal or common eugenics should allow a eugenic ethnology to exist, which should indicate and facilitate for each race or nation the defence and propagation of its own physical type and its own mentality. ”

“ Thus in our example that group of individuals would alone survive, the ancestors of which originally possessed the appropriate colour. But if one group alone survived, it follows that all hereditary individual differences would have disappeared from the species, for the members of such a single group are identical with one another and with their original ancestors. We thus reach the conclusion that monogonic reproduction can never cause hereditary individual variability, but that, on the other hand, it is very likely to lead to its entire suppression. ”

“ Admit that Negroes and Australians, Negritos and Mongols are distinct species, or distinct genera, if you will, and you may yet, with perfect consistency, be the strictest of Monogenists, and even believe in Adam and Eve as the primaeval parents of all mankind.
It is to Mr. Darwin we owe this discovery: it is he who, coming forward in the guise of an eclectic philosopher, presents his doctrine as the key to ethnology, and as reconciling and combining all that is good in the Monogenistic and Polygenistic schools. ”

“ They found, however, but few imitators; and many polygenists are to this day content to assign a distinct origin to each of the five principal trunks, which constitute for the monogenists the five fundamental races, but which are to us only natural groups formed by the union of races or species of the same type. They continue also very often to use the term race to designate the ensemble of all individuals of each group, adopting thus by a sort of transaction the language of those whose system they reject ”

“ No, reply the polygenists; for the differences are greater than those which characterize certain species. In order to meet this objection, the monogenists have had recourse to what is called the middle theory, and to that of the cross-breeds. The whole of the external circumstances under which the representatives of a species exist, constitute what is called the middle or medium, to which monogenists, supporting themselves on undoubted facts, attribute the power of gradually changing the medium type of a species. ”

“ The monogenists had, strictly speaking, a right to do so without any violence to their principles; but the polygenists, who have followed their example, have sinned against logic. The former attribute all varieties of the human species to the numerous modifications of five principal races, issued themselves from one common stock, and the same influences which, according to then, have in the origin produced fundamental races, have afterwards by an analogous process produced the secondary races. ”

“ The United States great in a thousand ways, although often the despair of the reformer, offers the most « 6 » promising field of the whole world in the direction of Eugenics. Comprising within her catholic embrace many varieties of monogamic marriage she possesses contrasts, comparisons, examples and warnings, which will be of infinite use in the Eugenist's laboratory. Well may we be content to show from these differences how on the present basis of marriage a nobler race may be reared. ”

“ The Polygenists regard the differences of height, features, and colour, which distinguish the inhabitants of different countries of the globe, as fundamental; the Monogenists consider these differences merely as the result of accidental conditions, which have modified, in various degrees, a primitive type. The former hold that there are several human species perfectly independent of each other; the latter that there is but one species of man which is divided into several races, all of which are derived from a common stock. ”

“ So to the eugenist heredity stands as the one great hope of the human race; its savior from imbecility, poverty, disease, immorality. But, to be effective, the available salvation must be accepted. By some means or other the principles of eugenics already known, and those which studies now being undertaken will surely reveal, must be applied in marriage selection. To-day, marriage is controlled imperfectly, crudely, by social ideals. Incest, cousin marriages, the marriage of defectives and tuberculous persons, are, in wide circles, taboo. ”

“ But these two fundamental propositions, admitted as axioms, do they express the truth? Can this triumphant syllogism, of which they are the premises, stand? Is it true that only animals of the same species can produce a prolific progeny? Is65 it true that all human crossings are eugenesic? To upset the syllogism of the monogenists, and to deprive their system of any scientific base, it might be sufficient that the first of the above questions should be answered in the negative. ”

“ When a monogenist admits as an origin one uniform human race, he places a term of comparison in the past, he gives an historical date more or less definite to this uniform human species. And it is because religious cosmogonies alone dare, at the present day, to arrogate to themselves the power of making history dart back to the commencement of humanity, that we shall always be much troubled by not seeing a theological influence as the basis of monogenist ideas ”

“ Even those who still believed in what is conventionally called "the inheritance of acquired characteristics" would be quick to repudiate any such application of the doctrine as is commonly made by most of the philanthropists and social workers who are proceeding without seeking the light of biology. But the idea that these modifications are inherited is so widespread among all who have not studied biology, and is so much a part of the tradition of society, that the question must be here examined, before we can proceed confidently with our program of eugenics. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is therefore possible to raise the level of the human race—the task of eugenics—by getting [Pg 115] that half of the race which is, on the whole, superior in the traits that make for human progress and happiness, to contribute a larger proportion to the next generation than does the half which is on the whole inferior in that respect. Eugenics need know nothing more, and the smoke of controversy over the exact way in which some trait or other is inherited must not be allowed for an instant to obscure the known fact that the level can be raised. ”

“ Nearly all the polygenistic arguments are included in the following:—“The difference between the Negro and the White is too great for them to belong to the same species.” These types are the two extremes in the human series. Therefore, if it can be shown that between the two extremes, the limits of variation are almost always greater in plants and animals than in man, we shall have undermined the foundation of the whole polygenistic doctrine. ”

“ Before examining the methods by which society can put into effect some measure of negative or restrictive eugenics, it may be well to decide what classes of the population can properly fall within the scope of such treatment. Strictly speaking, the problem is of course one of individuals rather than classes, but for the sake of convenience it will be treated as one of classes, it being understood that no individual should be put under restriction with eugenic intent merely because he may be supposed to belong to a given class ”

“ Such as deny the fecundity of the reciprocal cross-breeds of the five chief primary races might err in some points, and be right as to others. But those who extend this by far too general negation in applying it to the intermixture of secondary races of the same group commit a more serious error. They have reasoned like the monogenists, who knowing from experience that certain human races may become mixed without limitation, have affirmed that all the races, without exception, are in a similar condition. ”

“ The question of primitive man does not exist for the polygenist, since he recognizes all his species with the characters which they have had from the commencement.
No one, I think, will dispute the truth of these propositions, which compel the conclusion that anthropology is an entirely different science to the monogenist and the polygenist. ”

“ There is another and somewhat similar fallacy which deserves a passing word, although it is of more concern to the livestock breeder than to the eugenist. It is called telegony and is, briefly, this: that conception by a female results in a definite modification of her germ-plasm from the influence of the male, and that this modification will be shown in the offspring she may subsequently bear to a second male. The only case where it is often invoked in the human race is in miscegenation. A white woman has been married to a Negro, for instance, and has borne one or more mulatto offspring. ”

“ Now if we are to achieve any immediate success we must clearly divide our proposals, as the present writer did some years ago, with Mr. Galton's approval, into two classes: positive eugenics and negative eugenics. The one would seek to encourage the parenthood of the worthy, the other to discourage the parenthood of the unworthy. Positive eugenics is the original eugenics, but, as the writer endeavoured to show at the time, negative eugenics is one with it in principle. The two are complementary, and are both practised by Nature: natural selection is one with natural rejection. ”

“ This has led some sex hygienists, child welfare workers, and persons similarly engaged, to attempt to capitalize the interest in eugenics by appropriating the name for their own use. We strongly object to any such misuse of the word, which should designate the application of [Pg 155] genetics to the human race. Sex hygiene, child welfare, and other sanitary and sociological movements should stand on their own feet and leave to eugenics the scope which its Greek derivation indicates for it,—the science of good breeding. ”

“ X. comes, let us say, from a family in which there is a persistent taint of epilepsy, or insanity. X. is a normal, useful, [Pg 199] conscientious member of society. To talk of segregating such an individual would be rash. But X. has given some thought to heredity and eugenics, and decides that he, or she, will refrain from marriage, in order to avoid transmitting the family taint to another generation. Here we have, in effect, a non-coercive restriction of reproduction. What shall we say of the action of X. in remaining celibate,—is it wise or unwise? To be encouraged or condemned? ”

“ Eugenic social thought holds that heredity among human beings operates according to the same laws that govern heredity among animals. The theory of Mendelian units becomes in practice the theory of multiple factors. The unit characters, upon analysis, appear to be complex and to be inherited in complex ways. Multiple factors are inherited from generation to generation directly when pure factors are united with pure factors. But when the pure is united with the hybrid, then the laws of dominance and recessiveness operate. ”