n, and potentially immortal; that
it is carefully isolated and guarded in the body, so that it is not
likely to be injured by any ordinary means.

One of the logical results of this continuity of the germ-plasm is that
modifications of the body of the parent, or acquired characters, can
hardly be transferred to the germ-plasm and become a part of the
inheritance. Further the experimental evidence upholds this position,
and the inheritance of acquired body characters may be disregarded by
eugenics, which is therefore obliged to concern itself solely with the
material already in existence in the germ-plasm, except as that material
may be changed by variation which can neither be predicted nor
controlled.

The evidence that the germ-plasm can be permanently modified does not
warrant the belief; and such results, if they exist at all, are not
large enough or uniform enough to concern the eugenist.

Pre-natal culture and telegony were found to be mere delusions. There is
no justification for hoping to influence the race for good through the
action of any kind of external influences; and there is not much danger
of influencing it for ill through these external influences. The
situation must be faced squarely then: if the race is to be improved, it
must be by the use of the material already in existence; by endeavor to
change the birth-and death-rates so as to alter the relative proportions
of the amounts of good and bad germ-plasm in the race. This is the only
road by which the goal of eugenics can be reached.

CHAPTER III

DIFFERENCES AMONG MEN

While Mr. Jefferson, when he wrote into the Declaration of Independence
his belief in the self-evidence of the truth that all men are created
equal, may have been thinking of legal rights merely, he was expressing
an opinion common among philosophers of his time. J. J. Rousseau it was
who made the idea popular, and it met with widespread acceptance for
many years. It is not surprising, therefore, that the phrase has long
been a favorite with the demagogue and the utopian. Even now the
doctrine is by no means dead. The American educational system is based
largely on this dogma, and much of the political system seems to be
grounded on it. It can be seen in the tenets of labor unions, in the
practice of many philanthropies--traces may be found almost anywhere one
turns, in fact.

Common enough as applied to mental qualities, the theory of human
equality is even more wid