Human Inheritance 205 by proper breeding make the race more uniform and maintain it at or near a chosen standard. Since we have many good reasons to think that man's physical inheritance conforms to the same principles that apply to other animals, it follows that by elimination and suitable mating man too could be standardized. How far one might have to go in order to carry out this reformation is a matter of opinion. If too strenuous standards were set up the human race might be exterminated before the reformation began. Genetic reformers and racial propagandists do little more than recommend cutting off a few of the most defective individuals. But it is not so much the physically defective that appeal to their sympathies as the "morally" deficient and this is supposed to apply to mental traits rather than to physical characters. Ruthless genetic(?) reform here might seem too drastic and might be retroactive if pressed too far. Social reforms might, perhaps, more quickly and efficiently get at the root of a part of the trouble, and until we know how much the environment is responsible for, I am inclined to think that the student of human heredity will do well to recommend more enlightenment on the social causes of deficiencies rather than more elimination in the present deplorable state of our ignorance as to the causes of mental differences. Lest it appear from what has been said that I have too little faith in the importance of breeding [end]