Another line of criticism would question whether the hereditary traits
that make for success, as we now understand it, are after all the ones
we need to increase. Many feel a lively dissatisfaction with the people
who rule our economic and political institutions; they are criticised as
selfish, unsocial, predatory. “The successful man, it is alleged, is not
a success.” Indeed, as a matter of theory, it is by no means clear that
those who gain the economic prizes are those who are doing most for the
welfare of the race. The question might be put in this way: Is not the
desirable type the Christian type, using the term to designate those who
are swayed by a large fellow-feeling? And is the successful type
conspicuously Christian? The affirmative of this does not seem very
evident. “Many that are first shall be last.”
Besides selfish ambition, there are other traits that might push a man
upward but not be desirable to increase. Is not the successful class
deficient in domestic impulses? They appear to be unprolific, and this
may indicate that the instincts are weak, causing the sacrifice of
family life to ambition. Perhaps the infecundity of this class is only
the wholesome elimination of an unsocial type. The best type of man may
be too broadly human for economic success.
On the other hand, there is good sense in the view that success is
usually attained by qualities of general value, such as energy,
initiative, tenacity, and intelligence; and that, so far as it is
accompanied by selfishness, lack of domesticity, and the like, we may
ascribe this rather to environment than to any defect in the hereditary
type. There is much in success to make a man selfish.
The eugenic superiority of the upper economic class may also be
questioned on the ground that the conditions for _maintaining_ a
superior stock are not so good in this class as in a less prosperous
part of society. The tests are not so rigid; people who are supported by
inherited wealth may raise families whether they have shown any natural
ability or not. Their position is somewhat like that of the chronic
paupers at the other economic extreme, who raise degenerate families by
the aid of charity. Certainly there are many marriages of the sons and
daughters of the rich which do not seem based on personal merit, either
biologic or social.
I suppose the reader will feel, as I do, that it is hardly possible, in
view of these conflicting considerations, to form any precise idea of
the relative eugenic value of the upper economic class. My own
impression, derived mainly from general observation, is that it does,
after all, contain a large number of exceptionally able families, many
of which are becoming unprolific under the influences of prosperity. If
we can increase the fecundity of such families by diffusing a higher
sense of race obligation we shall be doing excellent work for the next
generation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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