The scope of eugenics / [H.J. Laski].

  • Laski, Harold J. (Harold Joseph), 1893-1950.
Date:
[1910?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The scope of eugenics / [H.J. Laski]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    No contest is so important in the modern study of biology as that raging between the Mendelians and the Biometricians. While no school is so rich in promise as the former, for the present, at any rate, the conclusions reached by the Biometricians are of more eugenic importance. The school, indeed, will have so to alter some of its fundamental conclusions as to bring them into line with the ascertained facts of Mendelian inheritance. Segregation is a physiological phenomenon of which Galton had no conception when he promulgated his law of ancestral inheritance; and that fascinating hypothesis will have greatly to be reconstructed before it can be accepted as authoritative or final. But Mendelism has as yet given us little certain material upon which to work, while to the biometrician we owe some of our most important results. It is impossible, of course, to minimise the importance of Mendelism. No modern study has a more profound significance. But there are some grave difficulties in the way of its universal application, difficulties which, in the end, may be more apparent than real. The fact, however, that we have little certain evidence of Men¬ delian inheritance in man, makes its results of considerably diminished importance, from the eugenic point of view. Mr. Hurst, indeed, has almost definitely proved eye-colour to conform to Mendelian hypothesis; and in such defects as Daltonism and brachydactyly, Professor Bateson has given good reason for think¬ ing that Mendelian inheritance takes place. But in two subjects in which Professor Pearson has particularly interested himself—in albinism and lobster-claw in man, he considers the results distinctly unconformable. Recent biological research, however, justifies us in coming to the conclusion that the progress of individual, to use Mr. Punnett’s apt phraseology, is “ a matter of gametes, not of training; of breeding rather than pedagogics.” That is a con¬ clusion on which both schools alike are agreed. Professor Bateson has laid stress on the importance of negative eugenics. Professor Pearson has devoted himself to its justification and exposition. But eugenics does not pledge us to any single theory of inherit¬ ance. We accept, and thankfully, the results of all. It is our object to trace the differences and likenesses of inheritance, and thus to obtain, as Pearson has done, by the accurate totalisation of individual cases, the degree of resemblance not merely of phy¬ sical, but also of psychical characters. It is important, however, to bear in mind that the exact means whereby the laws of inherit¬ ance are obtained are of more importance, though not of more interest, to the scientific experimenter than to the eugenist. It is important that we should examine the results of the con¬ clusion that acquired characters are not transmitted. It must lead, it is probable, to a revision of some current methods of charity. It