TO EUGENICS BY CHARLES BENEDICT DAVENPORT CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF EXPERIMENTAL EVOLUTION SECRETARY OF THE EUGENICS SECTION Οὐ πολλὰ αλλα πολύ NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY ΤΟ MRS. E. H. HARRIMAN IN RECOGNITION OF THE GENEROUS ASSISTANCE GRATEFULLY DEDICATED 291 PREFACE RECENT great advances in our knowledge of heredity have revolutionized the methods of agriculturalists in improving domesticated plants and animals. It was early recognized that this new knowledge would have a farreaching influence upon certain problems of human society -the problems of the unsocial classes, of immigration, of population, of effectiveness, of health and vigor. Now, great as are the potentialities of the new science of heredity in its application to man it must be confessed that they are not yet realized. A vast amount of investigation into the laws of the inheritance of human traits will be required before it will be possible to give definite instruction as to fit marriage matings. Our social problems still remain problems. For a long time yet our watchword must be investigation. The advance that has been made so far is chiefly in getting a better method of study. In this book I have sought to explain this new method. An application of this method to some specific problems, especially to the transmission of various human traits and susceptibilities to disease, has been attempted. The suggestions made are by no means final but are made to illustrate the general method and give the most probable conclusions. Only with much more accurate data can the laws of inheritance of family peculiarities be definitely determined. Some general consequences of the new point of view for the American population have been set forth in Chapters IV to VI. Their essential truth will, I trust, be generally 231390 |