The idea of "Natural Equality" is one of the most pernicious delusions that has ever afflicted mankind. It is a figment of the human imagination. Nature knows no equality. The most cursory examination of natural phenomena reveals the presence of a Law of Inequality as universal and inflexible as the Law of Gravitation. The evolution of life is the most striking instance of this fundamental truth. Not only are the various life types profoundly unequal in qualities and capacities; the individual members of each type are similarly differentiated among themselves. No two individuals are ever precisely alike.
Evolution means a process of ever growing inequality. There is, in fact, no such word as "equality" in nature's lexicon. With an increasingly uneven hand she distributes health, beauty, vigor, intelligence, genius – all the qualities which confer on their possessors superiority over their fellows.
Now, in the face of all this, how has the delusion of "natural equality" obtained – and retained – so stubborn a hold on mankind? The slogan of "equality" was raised far back in the remote past, and, instead of lessening, was never more loudly trumpeted than today.
Here is obviously something requiring careful analysis. As a matter of fact, the passion for "natural" equality seems to spring primarily from certain impulses of the ego. Every individual is inevitably the centre of his world, and instinctively tends to regard his own existence and well-being as matters of supreme importance. No matter how low may be his capacities, no matter how egregious his failures, no matter how unfavorable the judgement of his fellows; still his instincts whisper that he should survive and prosper, that "things are not right," and that if the world were properly ordered he would be much better placed.
It inspires the individual to resent his unfavorable status, and this resentment tends to take the form of protest against "injustice." Injustice of what? Of "fate," "nature," "circumstances," perhaps; yet, more often, injustice of persons – individually or collectively (i.e., "society"). "We are all men. We are all equal!" Such is the underlying idea of "natural equality." It is, of course, evident that the idea is emotional, and when confronted by hard facts it takes refuge in mystic faith. All levelling doctrines (including, of course, the various brands of modern Socialism) are, in the last analysis, not intellectual concepts, but religious cults. This is strikingly shown by recent events. During the past ten years biology and other sciences have refuted practically all the intellectual arguments on which the doctrine of "natural equality" relies.
The new biological revelation has taught us the supreme importance of heredity. Mankind tended to believe that enviornment rather than heredity was the main factor in human existance. Let us glance at the state of human knowledge a few short decades ago.
Down to that time the exact nature of the life process remained a mystery. This mystery has now been cleared up. The researches of Weismann and other modern biologists have revealed the fact that all living beings are due to a continuous stream of germ-plasm which has existed ever since life first appeared on earth, and which will continue to exist as long as any life remains. All human beings spring from the union of a male sperm-cell and a female egg-cell. Right here, however, occurs the basic feature of the life process. The new individual consists, from the start, of two sorts of plasm. Almost the whole of him is body-plasm. But he also contains germ-plasm. In fact, the germ-plasm is not really part of the individual; he is merely its bearer, destined to pass it on to other bearers of the life chain.
Now all this was not only unknown but even unsuspected down to a very short time ago. Thus, down to about a generation ago, the life stuff was supposed to be a product of the body, not differing essentially in character from other body products. This assumption had two important consequences. In the first place, it tended to obscure the very concept of heredity, and led men to think of environment as the most important; in the second place, the role of the individual was misunderstood, and he was conceived as a creator rather than a mere transmitter. This was the reason for the false theory of the "inheritance of acquired characteristics," formulated by Lamark and upheld by most scientists until almost the end of the nineteenth century. Of course, Lamarkism was merely a modification of the traditional "environmentalist" attitude: it admitted that heredity possessed some importance, but it maintained environment as the basic factor.
Now a moment's reflection must suggest the tremendous practical differences between the theories of environment and heredity. It involves a radically different outlook on every phase of life, from religion and government to personal conduct. Let us examine the facts of the case. Down to our own days mankind had generally believed that environment was the chief factor in existence. To the pressing problems of environment, therefore, man devoted himself, seeking in the control of his surroundings both the betterment of the race and the curing of its ills. Only occasionally did a few reflective minds catch a glimpse of the heredity factor in the problem of life. They were the ancient Greeks who discerned clearly the principle of heredity, gave considerable thought to it, and actually evolved a theory of race-betterment by the weeding out of inferior strains and the multiplication of superiors – in other words, the "Eugenics" theory of today.
For example, as early as the sixth century B.C. the Greek poet Theognis of Megara wrote: "We look for rams and asses and stallions of good stock, and one believes that good will come from good; yet a good man minds not to wed the evil daughter of an evil sire... Marvel not that the stock of our folk is tarnished, for the good is mingling with the base." A century later Plato was as much interested in biological selection as the best method for race improvement. He suggested that the state should mate the best with the best and the worst with the worst; the former should be encouraged to breed freely, while the offspring of the unfit should be destroyed. Aristotle likewise held that the state should strongly encourage the increase of superior types.
The same is true of those other rare thinkers who, like Shakespear with his famous lines about "nature" and "nuture," evidently grasped the hereditarian idea. Still the mass of mankind continued to hold that enviornment was the great matter for consideration. Therefore, according to the environmentalist, progress depends, not on human nature, but on conditions and institutions. Again, if man is the product of his environment, human differences are merely effects of environmental differences, and can be rapidly modified by environmental changes. Lastly, before the supreme importance of environment, all human differences whether individual or racial sink into insignificance, and all men are potentially "equal."
Such are the logical deductions from the environmentalist theory. And this theory was certainly attractive. It not only appealed to those wounded feelings of self the unfortunate but it appealed also to many of the most superior minds of the race. What could be more attractive than the thought that humanity's ills were due to faulty surroundings, and that the most backward and degraded human beings might possibly be raised to the highest levels if only the environment was sufficiently improved? This appeal to altruism was powerfully strengthened by the Christian doctrine of the equality of all souls before God. What wonder, then, that philosophers and scientists combined to elaborate theories about mankind of a wholly environmentalist character?
All the greatest thinkers of the eighteenth century were convinced believers in "natural equality." Locke and Hume, for example, taught that at birth "the human mind is a blank sheet, and the brain a structureless mass, lacking inherent organization or tendencies to develop in this way or that; a mere mass of undefined potentialities which, through experience, association, and habit, through education, in short, could be molded and developed to an unlimited extent and in any manner or direction."The doctrine of natural equality was brilliantly formulated by Rousseau, and was explicitly stated both in the American Declaration of Independence and in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the progress of science had begun to lift the veil which obscured the mystery of heredity.. At first the phenomena of inheritance were not believed to effect the basic importance of environment. This idea was clearly stated early in the nineteenth century by the French naturalist Lamarck. Lamarck asserted that the forms and functions of living beings arose and developed through use, and that such changes were directly transmitted from generation to generation. In other words, Lamarck formulated the theory of the "inheritance of acquired characteristics" which was destined to dominate biological thinking down to a generation ago. This theory, which is usually termed "Lamarckism," was merely a modification of the old environmentalist philosophy. It admitted the factor of heredity, but it considered heredity dependent upon environmental influences.
It is difficult to overestimate the tremendous practical consequences of Lamarkism, not merely upon the nineteenth century but also upon our times. The importance of heredity may today be accepted by most scientists, but it has neither deeply penetrated the popular consciousness nor sensibly modified our institutions. We are still living and acting under the environmentalist theories of the past. Our political, educational, and social systems remain alike rooted in Lamarckism and state that environment rather than heredity is the chief factor in human existence. Accordingly, "the comfortable and optimistic doctrine was preached that we had only to improve one generation by more healthy surroundings, or by better education, and, by the mere action of heredity, the next generation would begin on a higher level than its predecessor. And so, from generation to generation, on this theory, we could hope continually to raise the inborn character of a race in an unlimited progress of cumulative improvement." On this common environmentalist basis all the political and social philosophies of the nineteenth century arose. They might differ widely over which environmental factor was of prime importance. Political thinkers asserted that progress depended on constitutions; "naturalists" like Buckle claimed that peoples were moulded by their physical environments like so much soft clay; while Socialists proclaimed that man's regeneration lay in a new system of economics. Nevertheless, they were all united by a common belief in the supreme importance of environment, and they all either ignored heredity or deemed it a minor factor.
Let us now consider the rise of the new biology. Modern biology dates from the publication of Darwin's work “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,” in the year 1859. This book was fiercely challenged and was not generally accepted even by the scientific world until the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Its acceptance, however, marked a revolution of ideas. Darwin established the principle of evolution and showed that evolution preceeded by heredity. The second great step was soon taken by Francis Galton, the founder of the science of "Eugenics" or "Race Betterment." Darwin had centred his attention on animals. Galton applied Darwin's teaching to man, and went on to break new ground by pointing out not merely the inborn differences between men, but the fact that these differences could be controlled; that the human stock could be surely and lastingly improved by increasing the number of individuals endowed with superior qualities and decreasing the number of inferiors. In other words, Galton grapsed fully the momentous implications of heredity (which Darwin had not done), and announced clearly that heredity rather than environment was the basic factor of human progress.
Like most intellectual pioneers, Galton had to wait long for adequate recognition. Although his first writings appeared in 1865, they did not attract the attention excited by Darwin's work, and it was not until the nineteenth century that his theory gained wide acceptance even in scientific circles, while the educated public did not become really aware of it until the opening years of the present century. Once fairly started, however, the idea made rapid progress. So part of the civilized world scientists took up the work, and soon a series of remarkable discoveries by biologists like Weismann, DeVries, and others put the new science on an authoritative foundation.
The discovery of the true nature of the life process, the certainty that the vast inequalities among men are due primarily to heredity rather than environment, and the discovery of a scientific method of race improvement, are matters of transcendant importance. Let us examine some of their practical aspects.
One of the most striking features of the life process is the tremendous power of heredity. The marvellous potency of the germ-plasm is increasingly revealed by each freash biological discovery. Carefully isolated and protected against external influences, the germ-plasm persistently follows its predetermined course, and even when actually interfered with it tends to overcome the difficulty and resume its normal evolution.
This persistency of the germ-plasm is seen at every stage of its development, from the isolated germ-cell to the mature individual. Consider it first at its earliest stage. Ten years ago biologists generally believed that the germ-plasm was permanently injured – and permanently modified – by certain chemical substances and disease toxins like lead, alcohol, syphilis, etc. These noxious influences were termed "racial poisons," and were believed to be prime causes of racial degeneracy. In other words, here was a field where biologists used to claim that environment directly modified heredity in profound and lasting fashion. Today the weight of evidence is clearly the other way. While it is still generally admitted that injury to the germ-plasm does occur, most biologists now think that such injury is a temporary "induction," that is, a change in the germ-cells which does not permanently alter the nature of the inherited traits and which will disappear in a few generations if the injury is not repeated. The germ-plasm is so carefully isolated and guarded that it is almost impossible to injure it.
Consider now the life process at its next stage – the stage between conception and birth. It used to be thought that the germ-plasm of the growing embryo could be injured and permanently altered by "prenatal" influences, such as the mother's undernourishment, chronic exhaustion, fright, worry, or shock. Today such ideas are utterly discredited. There is not a shred of evidence that the mother's circumstances or feelings can affect in any way the germ-plasm of her unborn child. Of course, the mother's condition may profoundly affect the embryo's body-plasm, so that the child may be born stunted or diseased. But the child will not pass on those handicaps by heredity to its offspring. Conversely, it is equally certain that nothing the mother can do to improve her unborn child will better its germ-plasm. Let us pass to the next stage. Birth has taken place. The individual is out in the world and is exposed to environmental influences vastly greater than those which acted upon him during his embryonic stage. But these environmental influences fall upon his body-plasm; his germ-plasm is as carefully isolated and protected as was his parents.
The American biologist Woods, who formulated "The Law of Diminshing Environmental Influences." showed that environmental influence diminishes according to the individual's rank in the biological scale. Woods says: "It must be remembered that the brain-cells, even of a child, are, of all tissues, farthest removed from any of these primordial states. The cells of the brain ceased subdivision long before birth. Woods concludes: "Experimentally and statistically, there is not a grain of proof that ordinary environment can alter the salient mental and moral traits in any measurable degree from what they were predetermined to be through innate influences."
We thus see that man is moulded more by heredity and less by environment than any other living creature, and that the vast differences observable between human beings are mainly predetermined at the instant of conception, with relatively little regard to what happens afterward.
Let us now observe some of the actual workings of heredity in man, both in the good and bad sense. Now what do we know about superior individuals? We know that they exist and that they are due to heredity. We also know that superiors tend to produce superior offspring, but that they produce such offspring according to natural laws which can be determined statistically with a high degree of accuracy. (And, of course, the same is true of the production of inferiors.)
The production of superior persons has been studied by modern biologists, and a mass of authoritative data has been accumulated. Let us examine a few of these instructive investigations.The earliest of them is Galton's study on "Hereditary Genius" (1869). Galton discovered that in English history success in life was a strikingly "family affair." From careful statistical investigation of a great number of notable Englishmen Galton found that a distinguished father was infinitely more likely to have a distinguished son than was an undistinguished father. To cite one case out of many, Galton found that the son of a distinguished judge had about one chance in four of becoming himself distinguished, while the son of a man picked out at random from the general population had only about one chance in 4,000 of becoming similarly distinguished.
Of course, the objection at once suggested itself that environmental influences like social opportunity might be predominant; that the son of a distinguished man is pushed forward regardless of his innate abilities, while the son of an obscure man never gets a chance. To test this, Galton turned to the history of the Papacy. For centuries it was the custom for a Pope to adopt one of his nephews as a son, and advance him in every way. Now if opportunity is all that is necessary to advance a man, these adopted sons ought to have reached eminence in the same proportion as the real sons of eminent men. As a matter of fact, however, they reached eminence only as often as the statistical expectation for nephews of great men – whose chance of eminence has been discovered to be much less than that of the sons of great men. Nevertheless, despite different ratios of heritability, superiority still remains a family affair; Galton found that nearly half of the great men of England had distinguished close relatives.
But how about superior individuals who rise from apparently mediocre stocks? Environmentalist writers are forever compiling lists of great men who "came from nothing." These cases have, however, been carefully investigated, and the more they are studied the more convincing grows the evidence that greatness never arises out of "nothing." Take Abraham Lincoln. He was long a bright example of the environmentalist thesis. Lincoln is popularly supposed to have come from "poor white trash" of a very inferior order. But careful in- vestigation proves that this is emphatically not true. As one of the investigators remarks: "So far from his later career being unaccounted for in his origin and early history, it is as fully accounted for as is the case of any man." And a recent authority goes on to state: "The Lincoln family was one of the best in America, and while Abraham's own father was an eccentric person, he was yet a man of considerable force of character. The Hanks family, to which the Emancipator's mother belonged, had also maintained a high level of ability in every generation. Furthermore, Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, the parents of Abraham Lincoln, were first cousins."
Of course, there is a considerable number of distingushed individuals whose greatness cannot be explained. But in most cases this is because very little is known about their ancestors. Even if we admit that great men may occasionally arise from stocks which had never shown any signs of superiority, this ought to strengthen rather than weaken our belief in the force of heredity. As Woods well says, when it is considered how rarely such an ancestry produces a great man, it must be evident that his greatness is due to an accidental conjunction of favorable traits converging through his parents and meeting in himself.
Finally, how except by heredity can we explain the enormous differences in achievement between great numbers of persons exposed to the same environment and enjoying similar opportunities? "In terms of environment, the opportunity to become a great physicist was open to everyone of the thousands of university students who were the contemporaries of Lord Kelvin; the opportunity to become a great musician has been open to all the pupils in all the conservatories of music which have flourished since Johann Sebastian Bach was a choirboy at Luneburg; the opportunity to become a multimillionaire has been open to every clerk who has wielded a pen since John D. Rockefeller was a bookkeeper in a Cleveland store; the opportunity to become a great merchant has been open to every boy who has attended an American public school since the time when John Wanamaker, at fourteen years worked in a Philadelphia book store."
Such are the investigations of biology concerning human inequalities. They are certainly striking, and they all point to the same conclusions: that such inequalities are inborn; that they are predetermined by heredity; and that they are not inherently modified by either environment or opportunity.
But this is only half of the story. Within the past twenty years the problem of human inequality has been approached by a different branch of science – psychology. And the findings of these psychological investigations have not only tallied with those of biology in further revealing the inherited nature of human capacities, but have also proved it in even more striking fashion and with far greater possibilities of practical application. The novelty of the psychological approach to the problem is evident when we realize that, whereas biology has been investigating mainly the individual's ancestry or actions, psychology examines the mind itself. The best-known instruments of psychological investigation are the so-called "Intelligence Tests," first invented by the French psychologist Binet in the year 1905. From Binet's relatively modest beginning the mental tests have increased enormously in both complexity and scope, culminating in three gigantic investigations conducted by the American army authorities during the late war, when more than 1,700,000 men were mentally tested in a variety of ways. The results already attained are of profound significance. It has been conclusively proved that intelligence is predetermined by heredity; that individuals come into the world differing vastly in mental capacities; that such differences remain virtually constant throughout life and cannot be lessened by environment or education. These are surely discoveries whose practical importance can hardly be overestimated. They enable us to grade not merely individuals but whole nations and races according to their inborn capacities, to take stock of our mental assets and liabilities, and to get a definite idea as to whether humanity is headed toward greater achievement or toward decline.
Let us now see precisely what the intelligence tests have revealed. In the first place, we must remember the true meaning of the word "intelligence." "Intelligence" must not be confused with "knowledge." Knowledge is the result of intelligence, to which it stands in the relation of effect to cause. Intelligence is the capacity of the mind; knowledge is the raw material which is put into the mind. Whether the knowledge is assimilated or lost, or just what use is made of it, depends primarily upon the degree of intelligence. This intellectual capacity as revealed by mental testing is termed by psychologists the "I. Q." or "intelligence quotient."
Psychology has invented a series of mental yardsticks for the measurement of human intelligence, beginning with the mind of the child. For example, the mental capacity of a child at a certain age can be ascertained by comparing it (as revealed by mental tests) with the inteligence. This is possible because it has been found that mental capacity increases regularly as a child grows older. This increase is rapid during the first years of life, then slows down until, about the age of sixteen. There is usually no further growth of mental capacity excep superior intellects that continue to grow in capacity for several years thereafter.
A large number of careful investigations made among school children have revealed literally amazing discrepancies between their chronological and their mental ages. In classes of first grade grammar-school children, where the chronological age is about six years, some pupils are found with mental ages as low as three while other pupils are found with mental ages as high as nine or ten. Similarly, in first year high-school classes, where the chronological age is about fourteen years, the mental age of some pupils may rank as low as ten or eleven, while the mental age of others may rise as high as nineteen or twenty.
It should be rememberd that the "I. Q." of any individual is a constant factor, which does not change with the lapse of time. All mental tests yield the same general results. "No matter what trait of the individual is chosen, the results are analogous. Whether it is speed in marking off all the A's in a printed sheet of capitals, or in putting together the pieces of a puzzle, or in giving a reaction to some certain stimulus or in making associations between ideas, or drawing fig ures, or memory for various things, or giving the opposites of words, or discrimination of lifted weights, or success in any one of hundreds of other mental tests, the conclusion is the same. There are wide differences in the abilities of individuals, no two beings alike, either mentally or physically, at birth or any time thereafter."
We thus see that human beings are spaced on widely different mental levels; that they have a variety of talents and physical statures, and that both are basically due to inheritance. Furthermore, it is extremely significant to observe how closely intelligence is correlated with industrial or professional occupation, social and economic status, and racial origin. Nowhere the power of heredity is shown more clearly than in the way innate superiority tends to be related to actual achievement. Despite the fact that our social system contains many defects which handicap superior individuals and foster inferiors; despite the fact that our ideas, laws, and institutions are largely based on the fallacies of environmentalism and "natural equality"; nevertheless, the imperious urge of superior germ-plasm beats against these man-made barriers and tends to raise the superior individuals who bear it – too often at the cost of their racial sterility through their failure to leave children.
Let us now pass to America. The United States offers a more instructive field, because, with its more fluid social structure and its heterogeneous racial makeup, the correlations between intelligence, social or economic status, and racial origin can be studied simultaneously.
Let us consider psychological investigations of the intelligence of adults. Fortunately, we possess a great mass of data from the investigations conducted by the United States army authorities upon more than 1,700,000 officers and men during the late war. These investigations were planned and directed by a board of eminent psychologists. The purposes of these psychological tests were, as stated in the army orders; "(a) to aid in segregating the mentally incompetent, (b) to classify men according to their mental capacity, (c) to assist in selecting competent men for responsible positions."
The tests were administrated to more than 1,700,000 officers and men. Separate tests were devised, and the close correlations obtained showed that inborn intelligence had been successfully segregated. Besides general intelligence gradings, special studies according to army rank, civilian occupation, racial origin, etc., were made on large groups consisting of "samples" taken at many points from the general mass.
The following is the system of general grading employed to indicate the degree of individual intelligence:
| A | = | very superior intelligence |
| B | = | superior intelligence |
| C + | = | high average intelligence |
| C | = | average intelligence |
| C – | = | low average intelligence |
| D | = | inferior intelligence |
| D – | = | very inferior intelligence |
| E | = | "unteachable men", rejected at once or after a short time |
Let us now see how the 1,700,000 men examined graded according to intelligence, and what mental age these classifications implied:
| Grade | Percentage | Mental Age |
| A | 4 ½ | 18 – 19 (+) |
| B | 16 – 17 | |
| C+ | 16 ½ | |
| C | 13 – 14 | |
| C- | ||
| D | ||
| D- |
This table is assuredly depressing. Probably never before has the relative scarcity of high intelligence been so vividly demonstrated. It strikingly reinforces that the number of really superior persons is small, and that the great majority of even the most civilized populations are of mediocre or low intelligence – which neither education nor any other environ mental agency can ever raise. Think of this table's social significance! Assuming that these 1,700,000 men are a fair sample of the entire population of approximately 100,000,000 (and there is every reason to believe that it is a fair sample), this means that the average mental age of Americans is only about fourteen; that forty-five millions, or nearly one-half of the whole population, will never develop mental capacity beyond the stage repre sented by a normal twelve year old child; that only thirteen and one-half millions will ever show superior intelligence, and that only four and one-half millions can be considered "talented."
We have thus far considered the nature of intelligence, and we have found it to be an inborn quality whose capacity is predetermined by heredity. Biologically, this is important, because a man may not make much actual use of his talents and yet pass them on to children who will make use of them. In everyday life, however, capacity is important chiefly as it expresses itself in practical performance as evidenced by knowledge and action. We here enter a field where environment plays an important part, since what a man actually learns or does depends obviously upon environmental factors like education, training, and opportunity. Now precisely how does environment affect performance? In extreme cases environment may be of major importance. A genius, condemned for life to the fate of Robinson Crusoe, would obviously accomplish very little; while, on the other hand, a man of mediocre capacity, if given every possible advantage, might make the utmost of his slender talents. But how is it under equal circumstances? Let us now see how environment affects performance with individuals under conditions of equal opportunity. How, for example, does equality of training or education affect individual achievement? The answer is another striking proof of the power of heredity. Not only is such equality of conditions unable to level the inborn differences between individuals; on the contrary, it increases the differences in results achieved. "Equalizing practice seems to increase differences. As McDougall justly remarks: "The higher the level of innate capacity, the more it is improved by education."
We thus see that even where superior individuals have no better opportunities than inferiors, environment tends to accentuate rather than equalize the differences between men, and that the only way to prevent increasing in equality is by deliberately holding the superiors down. Certainly, the whole trend of civilization is toward increasing inequality. In the first place, the demands made upon the individual are more and more complex and differentiated. The differences in training and edu cation between savages are relatively insignificant; the differences between the feudal baron and his serf were comparatively slight; the differences today between casual laborers and captains of industry are enormous.
The truth is that, as civilization progresses, social status tends to coincide more and more closely with racial value; in other words, a given population tends to become more and more differentiated biologically, the upper social classes containing an ever larger proportion of persons of superior natural endowments while the lower social classes contain a growing proportion of inferior. The intelligence tests show that unless the civilizing process is interrupted this stratification will become even sharper in the future.
Let us now look at the matter more closely. This process, by which individuals migrate socially upward or downward from class to class, is termed "The Social Ladder." The ease with which people can go up or down this ladder depends on the flexibility of the social order, and social flexibility in turn characterizes progressive civilizations. In the less advanced types of civilization, social flexibility is rare. However, as civilization progresses society becomes more flexible; and the "social ladder" works better and better. The segregation of populations according to racial value is produced, not merely by the social ladder, but by another process known as "assortative mating.” Scientific investigation has proved that "like tends to mate with like." It concerns both physical and mental characteristics. People tend to attract those who are usually of their own clan, with common standards, similar tastes, and educational attainments. The sustained intermarriage of a well-selected upper class raises society's apex into a sharply defined peak or core. Woods has termed this process "Social Conification." The members of such "conified" groups display clearly marked traits and possess high average racial value. On the other hand, the lowest social classes, segregated and drained of their best elements, similarly "conify" into well-marked racial inferiority. The effect in heredity of intelligence mating with intelligence, of stupidity with stupidity, of success with success – to put the matter roughly – has been to perpetuate and to increase these traits in the respective groups. On the other hand, under conditions of a broadening democratization of social life the more intelligent and successful elements in the 'lower' classes have been constantly rising out of their class into one socially above it. This movement must have the consequence of draining the `lower' classes of talent and genius, and, through a process of social migration, of increasing the genius and talent of each succeeding upper layer in the social series. We thus see that, as civilization progresses, inborn superiority tends to drain out of the lower social levels up into the higher social classes. And probably never before in human history has this selective process gone on so rapidly and so thoroughly as today. But it may be asked: Does this not imply the eventual formation of an aristocracy of "supermen," blessing all classes with the flowerings of its creative genius?
Unfortunately, no; not as society is now constituted. On the contrary, if these tendencies continue under present social conditions, the concentration of superiority in the upper social levels will spell general racial impoverishment and hence a general decline of civilization. Happily our civilization possesses a great advantage over past times: scientific knowledge. Our very minds and souls are imbued with delusions like environmentalism and "natural equality".
KEYS TO TESTS
Test I (Units 1, 2)
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Test II (Units 3 – 5)
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Test III (Units 6 - 8)
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CONTENTS
| UNIT I | The Study Of Society | |||||||||||||||||
| UNIT II | The Most Prominent Sociologists | |||||||||||||||||
| UNIT III | Society And Culture | |||||||||||||||||
| UNIT IV | Language And Culture | |||||||||||||||||
| UNIT V | Sociology And Values | |||||||||||||||||
| UNIT VI | Socializing New Individuals Into Society | |||||||||||||||||
| UNIT VII | Understanding Of Social Stratification And Social Inequality (Part I) | |||||||||||||||||
| UNIT VIII | Understanding Of Social Stratification And Social Inequality (Part II) | |||||||||||||||||
| TESTS | ||||||||||||||||||
| ADDITIONAL READING | ||||||||||||||||||
| I | Specifity Of Sociology And Sociological Knowledge | |||||||||||||||||
| II | The Rise Of Sociology As An Intellectual Tradition. Classical Tradition In Sociology Of The XIX Century | |||||||||||||||||
| III | The Iron Law Of Inquality | |||||||||||||||||
| KEYS TO TESTS | ||||||||||||||||||
