Part 31 (1/2)
(5) What can be expected of it, after it is revised in accordance with the ideas of the eugenist?
The answer to the first question, ”What is genealogy?” may be brief.
Genealogy may be envisaged from several points. It serves history. It has a legal function, which is of more consequence abroad than in America. It has social significance, in bolstering family pride and creating a feeling of family solidarity--this is perhaps its chief office in the United States. It has, or can have, biological significance, and this in two ways: either in relation to pure science or applied science. In connection with pure science, its function is to furnish means for getting knowledge of the laws of heredity. In application, its function is to furnish a knowledge of the inherited characters of any given individual, in order to make it possible for the individual to find his place in the world and, in particular, to marry wisely. It is obvious that the use of genealogy in the applied science of eugenics is dependent on previous research by geneticists; for marriage matings which take account of heredity can not be made unless the mode of inheritance of human traits has previously been discovered.
The historical, social, legal and other aspects of genealogy do not concern the present discussion. We shall discuss only the biological aspect; not only because it alone is germane to the present book, but because we consider it to have by far the greatest true value, accepting the criterion of value as that which increases the welfare of mankind.
By this criterion, the historical, legal and social aspects of genealogy will be seen, with a little reflection, to be of secondary importance to its biological aspect.
(2) Genealogy now is too often looked upon as an end in itself. It would be recognized as a science of much greater value to the world if it were considered not an end but a means to a far greater end than it alone can supply. It has, indeed, been contended, even by such an authority as Ottokar Lorenz, who is often called the father of modern scientific genealogy, that a knowledge of his own ancestry will tell each individual exactly what he himself is. This appears to be the basis of Lorenz's valuation of genealogy. It is a step in the right direction: but
(3) The present methods of genealogy are inadequate to support such a claim. Its methods are still based mainly on the historical, legal and social functions. A few of the faults of method in genealogy, which the eugenist most deplores, are:
(a) The information which is of most value is exactly that which genealogy ordinarily does not furnish. Dates of birth, death and marriage of an ancestor are of interest, but of limited biological importance. The facts about that ancestor which vitally concern his living descendant are the facts of his character, physical and mental; and these facts are given in very few genealogies.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LINE OF ASCENT THAT CARRIES THE FAMILY NAME
FIG. 40.--In some pedigrees, particularly those dealing with antiquity, the only part known is the line of ascent which carries the family name,--what animal breeders call the tail-male. In such cases it is evident that from the point of view of a geneticist practically nothing is known. How insignificant any single line of ascent is, by comparison with the whole ancestry, even for a few generations, is graphically shown by the above chart. It is a.s.sumed in this chart that no cousin marriages took place.]
(b) Genealogies are commonly too incomplete to be of real value.
Sometimes they deal only with the direct male line of ascent--the line that bears the family name, or what animal breeders call the tail-male.
In this case, it is not too much to say that they are nearly devoid of genuine value. It is customary to imagine that there is some special virtue inherent in that line of descent which carries the family name.
Some one remarks, for instance, to Mr. Jones that he seems to be fond of the sea.
”Yes,” he replies, ”You know the Joneses have been sailors for many generations.”
But the small contribution of heredity made to an individual by the line of descent carrying his family name, in comparison with the rest of his ancestry, may be seen from Fig. 40.
Such incomplete pedigrees are rarely published nowadays, but in studying historic characters, one frequently finds nothing more than the single line of ascent in the family name. Fortunately, American genealogies rarely go to this extreme, unless it be in the earliest generations; but it is common enough for them to deal only with the direct ancestors of the individual, omitting all brothers and sisters of those ancestors.
Although this simplifies the work of the genealogist immensely, it deprives it of value to a corresponding degree.
(c) As the purpose of genealogy in this country has been largely social, it is to be feared that in too many cases discreditable data have been tacitly omitted from the records. The anti-social individual, the feeble-minded, the insane, the alcoholic, the ”generally no-count,” has been glossed over. Such a lack of candor is not in accord with the scientific spirit, and makes one uncertain, in the use of genealogies, to what extent one is really getting all the facts. There are few families of any size which have not one such member or more, not many generations removed. To attempt to conceal the fact is not only unethical but from the eugenist's point of view, at any rate, it is a falsification of records that must be regarded with great disapproval.
At present it is hard to say to what extent undesirable traits occur in the most distinguished families; and it is of great importance that this should be learned.
Maurice Fishberg contends[160] that many Jewish families are characterized by extremes,--that in each generation they have produced more ability and also more disability than would ordinarily be expected.
This seems to be true of some of the more prominent old American families as well. On the other hand, large families can be found, such as the remarkable family of New England office-holders described by Merton T. Goodrich,[161] in which there is a steady production of civic worth in every generation with almost no mental defectives or gross physical defectives. In such a family there is a high sustained level.
It is such strains which eugenists wish especially to increase.
In this connection it is again worth noting that a really great man is rarely found in an ancestry devoid of ability. This was pointed out in the first chapter, but is certain to strike the genealogist's attention forcibly. Abraham Lincoln is often quoted as an exception; but more recent studies of his ancestry have shown that he is not really an exception; that, as Ida M. Tarbell[162] says, ”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.” 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, by no means the ”poor white trash” which he is often represented to have been. The Hanks family, to which the Emanc.i.p.ator'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.
The more difficult cases, for the eugenist, are rather to be found in such ancestries as those of Louis Pasteur and Michael Faraday.
Pasteur[163] might perhaps be justly considered the greatest man France has ever produced; his father was a non-commissioned soldier who came of a long line of tanners, while his mother's family had been gardeners for generations. Faraday, who is worthy to be placed close to Charles Darwin among eminent Englishmen, was the son of a blacksmith and a farmer's daughter. Such pedigrees are striking; and yet, as Frederick Adams Woods has remarked, they ought to strengthen rather than to weaken one's belief in the force of heredity. When it is considered how rarely such an ancestry produces a great man, it must be fairly evident that his greatness is due to an accidental conjunction of favorable traits, as the modern theory of genetics holds; and that greatness is not due to the inheritance of acquired characters, on which hypothesis Pasteur and Faraday would indeed be difficult to explain.
Cases of this sort, even though involving much less famous people, will be found in almost every genealogy, and add greatly to the interest of its study, as well as offering valuable data to the professional geneticist.
(d) Even if the information it furnishes were more complete, human genealogy would not justify the claims sometimes made for it as a science, because, to use a biological phrase, ”the matings are not controlled.” The results of a certain experiment are exhibited, but can not be interpreted unless one knows what the results would have been, had the preceding conditions been varied in this way or in that way.
These controlled experiments can be made in plant and animal breeding; they have been made by the thousand, by the hundred thousand, for many years. They can not be made in human society. It is, of course, not desirable that they should be made; but the consequence is that the biological meaning of human history, the real import of genealogy, can not be known unless it is interpreted in the light of modern plant and animal breeding. It is absolutely necessary that genealogy go into partners.h.i.+p with genetics, the general science of heredity. If a spirit of false pride leads genealogists to hold aloof from these experiments, they will make slow progress. The interpretation of genealogy in the light of modern research in heredity through the experimental breeding of plants and animals is full of hope; without such light, it will be discouragingly slow work.
Genealogists are usually proud of their pedigrees; they usually have a right to be. But their pride should not lead them to scorn the pedigrees of some of the peas, and corn, snapdragons and sugar beets, bulldogs and Shorthorn cattle, with which geneticists have been working during the last generation; for these humble pedigrees may throw more light on their own than a century of research in purely human material.
The science of genealogy will not have full meaning and full value to those who pursue it, unless they bring themselves to look on men and women as organisms subject to the same laws of heredity and variation as other living things. Biologists were not long ago told that it was essential for them to learn to think like genealogists. For the purpose of eugenics, neither science is complete without the other; and we believe that it is not invidious to say that biologists have been quicker to realize this than have genealogists. The Golden Age of genealogy is yet to come.