Applied Eugenics CHAPTER II! !MODIFICATION OF THE GERM-PLASM!

CHAPTER II!

!MODIFICATION OF THE GERM-PLASM!

!

Every living creature was at some stage of its life nothing more than a

!single cell. It is generally known that human beings result from the union of an egg-cell and a sperm-cell, but it is not so universally understood that these germ-cells are part of a continuous stream of germ-plasm which has been in existence ever since the appearance of life on the globe, and which is destined to continue in existence as long as life remains on the globe.

Early investigators tended naturally to look on the germ-cells as  a  product of the body. Being supposedly products of the body, it was natural to think that they would in some measure reproduce the character of the body which created them; and Darwin elaborated an ingenious

hypothesis to explain how the various characters could be represented in the germ-cell. The idea held by him, in common with most other thinkers of his period, is still held more or less unconsciously by those who

!have not given particular attention to the subject. Generation is conceived as a direct chain: the body produces the germ-cell which produces another body which in turn produces another germ-cell, and so on.

But a generation ago this idea fell under suspicion. August Weismann, professor of zoology in the University of Freiburg, Germany, made himself the champion of the new idea, about 1885, and developed it so effectively that it is now a part of the creed of nearly every

!biologist.

Weismann caused a general abandonment of the idea that the germ-cell is produced by the body in each generation, and popularised the conception of the germ-cell as a product of a stream of undifferentiated

!germ-plasm, not only continuous but (potentially at least) immortal. The body does not produce the germ-cells, he pointed out; instead, the germ-cells produce the body.

!The basis of this theory can best be understood by a brief consideration of the reproduction of very simple organisms.

"Death is the end of life," is the belief of many other persons than the Lotus Eaters. It is commonly supposed that everything which lives must eventually die. But study of a one-celled animal, an Infusorian, for example, reveals that when it reaches a certain age it pinches in two, and each half becomes an Infusorian in all appearance identical with the original cell. Has the parent cell then died? It may rather be said to survive, in two parts. Each of these daughter cells will in turn go through the same process of reproduction by simple fission, and the process will be continued in their descendants. The Infusorian can be

!called potentially immortal, because of this method of reproduction. (Note from Editor: This is much like a Dr. Who regeneration)

The immortality, as Weismann pointed out, is not of the kind attributed by the Greeks to their gods, who could not die because no wound could destroy them. On the contrary, the Infusorian is extremely fragile, and is dying by millions at every instant; but if circumstances are favourable, it can live on; it is not inevitably doomed to die sooner

!or later, as is Man. "It dies from accident often, from old age never."

!Now the single-celled Infusorian is in many respects comparable with the single-celled germ of the higher animals. The analogy has often been carried too far; yet it remains indisputable that the germ-cells of men reproduce in the same way--by simple fission--as the Infusorian and other one-celled animals and plants, and that they are organised on much the same plan. Given favourable circumstances, the germ-cell should be expected to be equally immortal. Does it ever find these favourable circumstances?

The investigations of microscopists indicate that it does--that evolution has provided it with these favourable circumstances, in the bodies of the higher animals. Let us recall in outline the early history of the fertilised germ-cell, the zygote formed by the union of ovum

and spermatozoon (the mature motile male sex cell of an animal, by which the ovum is fertilised, typically having a compact head and one or more long flagella for swimming.).

These two unite to form a single cell, which is

essentially the same, physiologically, as other germ-cells. It divides in two similar cells; these each divide; the resulting cells again divide, and so the process continues, until the whole body--a fully

!developed man,--has been produced by division and redivision of the one zygote.

!But the germ-cell is obviously different from most of the cells that make up the finished product, the body. The latter are highly differentiated and specialised for different functions--blood cells, nerve cells, bone cells, muscle cells, and so on, each a single cell but each adapted to do a certain work, for which the original, undifferentiated germ-cell was wholly unfit. It is evident that differentiation began to take place at some point in the series of divisions, that is to say, in the development of the embryo.

Th. Boveri, studying the development of a threadworm, made the interesting discovery that this differentiation began at the first division. Of the two daughter-cells produced from the zygote, one continued dividing at a very slow rate, and without showing any specialisation. Its "line of descent" produced only germ-cells. The products of division of the other daughter-cell began to differentiate, and soon formed all the necessary kinds of cells to make up the body of the mature worm. In this body, the cells from the first daughter-cell mentioned were inclosed, still undifferentiated: they formed the

!germ-cells of the next generation, and after maturity were ready to be ejected from the body, and to form new threadworms.

Imagine this process taking place through generation after generation of threadworms, and one will realise that the germ-plasm was passed on directly from one generation to the next; that in each generation it

gave rise to body-plasm, but that it did not at any time lose its

!identity or continuity, a part of the germ-plasm being always set aside, undifferentiated, to be handed on to the next generation.

In the light of this example, one can better understand the definition of germ-plasm as "that part of the substance of the parents which does not die with them, but perpetuates itself in their offspring." By bringing his imagination into play, the reader will realise that there

is no limit to the backward continuity of this germ-plasm in the threadworm. Granted that each species has arisen by evolution from some other, this germ-cell which is observed in the body of the threadworm, must be regarded as part of what may well be called a stream of

germ-plasm, that reaches back to the beginning of life in the world. It will be equally evident that these is no foreordained limit to the forward extension of the stream. It will continue in some branch, as

!long as there are any threadworms or descendants of threadworms in the world.

!The reader may well express doubt as to whether what has been demonstrated for the threadworm can be demonstrated for the higher animals, including man. It must be admitted that in many of these animals conditions are too unfavourable, and the process of embryology too complicated, or too difficult to observe, to permit as distinct a demonstration of this continuity of the germ-plasm, wherever it is sought. But it has been demonstrated in a great many animals; no facts which impair the theory have been discovered; and biologists therefore feel perfectly justified in generalising and declaring the continuity of germ-plasm to be a law of the world of living things.

Focusing attention on its application to man, one sees that the race must represent an immense network of lines of descent, running back through a vast number of different forms of gradually diminishing specialisation, until it comes to a point where all its threads merge in one knot--the single cell with which it may be supposed that life on this globe began. Each individual is not only figuratively, but in a

very literal sense, the carrier of the heritage of the whole race--of

the whole past, indeed. Each individual is temporarily the custodian of part of the "stuff of life"; from an evolutionary point of view, he may be said to have been brought into existence, primarily to pass this

sacred heritage on to the next generation. From Nature's standpoint, he is of little use in the world, his existence is scarcely justified,

unless he faithfully discharges this trust, passing on to the future

!the "Lamp of Life" whose fire he has been created to guard for a short while.

Immortality, we may point out in passing, is thus no mere hope to the parent: it is a real possibility. The death of the huge agglomeration

of highly specialised body-cells is a matter of little consequence, if

!the germ-plasm, with its power to reproduce not only these body-cells, but the mental traits--indeed, we may in a sense say the very soul--that inhabited them, has been passed on. The individual continues to live, in his offspring, just as the past lives in him. To the eugenist, life everlasting is something more than a figure of speech or a theological concept--it is as much a reality as the beat of the heart, the growth of muscles or the activity of the mind.

This doctrine of the continuity of germ-plasm throws a fresh light on the nature of human relationships. It is evident that the son who resembles his father can not accurately be called a "chip off the old block." Rather, they are both chips off the same block; and aside from bringing about the fusion of two distinct strains of germ-plasm, father and mother are no more responsible for endowing the child with its characters except in the choice of mate, than is the child for "stamping his impress" on his parents. From another point of view, it has been said that father and son ought to be thought of as half-brothers by two different mothers, each being the product of the same strain of paternal germ-plasm, but not of the same strain of maternal germ-plasm.

When the respective functions and relative importance, from a genetic point of view, of germ-plasm and body-plasm are understood, it must be fairly evident that the natural point of attack for any attempt at race betterment which aims to be fundamental rather than wholly superficial, must be the germ-plasm rather than the body-plasm. The failure to hold this point of view has been responsible for the disappointing results of much of the sociological theory of the last century, and for the fact

!that some of the work now carried on under the name of race betterment is producing results that are of little or no significance to true race betterment.

On the other hand, it must be fairly evident, from the pains which Nature has taken to arrange for the transmission of the germ-plasm from generation to generation, that she would also protect it from injury

!with meticulous care. It seems hardly reasonable to suppose that a material of this sort should be exposed, in the higher animals at least, to all the vicissitudes of the environment, and to injury or change from the chance of outward circumstances.

In spite of these presumptions which the biologist would, to say the least, consider worthy of careful investigation, the world is full of

well-intentioned people who are anxious to improve the race, and who in their attempts to do so, wholly ignore the germ-plasm. They see only the body-plasm. They are devoted to the dogma that if they can change the body (and what is here said of the body applies equally to the mind) in the direction they wish, this change will in some unascertainable way be reproduced in the next generation. They rarely stop to think that man is an animal, or that the science of biology might conceivably have something to say about the means by which his species can be improved; but if they do, they commonly take refuge, deliberately or

!unconsciously, in the biology of half a century ago, which still believed that these changes of the body could be so impressed on the germ-plasm as to be continued in the following generation.

Such an assumption is made to-day by few who have thoroughly studied the subject. Even those who still believed in what is conventionally called

!"the inheritance of acquired characteristics" would be quick to repudiate any such application of the doctrine as is commonly made by most of the philanthropists and social workers who are proceeding without seeking the light of biology. But the idea that these modifications are inherited is so widespread among all who have not studied biology, and is so much a part of the tradition of society, that the question must be here examined, before we can proceed confidently with our program of eugenics.

!The problem is first to be defined.

It is evident that all characters which make up a man or woman, or any other organism, must be either germinal or acquired. It is impossible to conceive of any other category. But it is frequently hard to say in

which class a given character falls. Worse still, many persons do not even distinguish the two categories accurately--a confusion made easier

!by the quibble that all characters must be acquired, since the organism starts from a single cell, which possesses practically none of the traits of the adult.

What we mean by an inborn character is one whose expression is due to something which is present in the germ-plasm; one which is inherent and due to heredity. An acquired character is simply a modification, due to some cause external to the germ-plasm acting on an inborn character. In looking at an individual, one can not always say with certainty which characters are which; but with a little trouble, one can usually reach a reliable decision. It is possible to measure the variation in a given character in a group of parents and their children, in a number of different environments; if the degree of resemblance between parent and offspring is about the same in each case, regardless of the different surroundings in which the children may have been brought up, the character may properly be called germinal. This is the biometric method of investigation. In practice, one can often reach a decision by much simpler means: if the character is one that appears at birth, e.g.,

skin colour, it is usually safe to assume that it is a germinal

!character, unless there is some evident reason for deciding otherwise, as in the case of a child born with some disease from which the mother had been suffering for the previous few months. In general, it is more difficult to decide whether a mental trait is germinal, than whether a physical one is; and great care should be used in classification.

To make the distinction, one ought to be familiar with an individual

from birth, and to have some knowledge of the conditions to which he was exposed, in the period between conception and birth,--for of course a modification which takes place during that time is as truly an acquired character as one that takes place after parturition. Blindness, for

example, may be an inborn defect. The child from conception may have lacked the requisites for the development of sight. On the other hand, it may be an acquired character, due to an ill-advised display of patriotism on July 4, at some time during childhood; or even to infection at the moment of birth. Similarly small size may be an inborn character, due to a small-sized ancestry; but if the child comes of a

!normal ancestry and is stunted merely because of lack of proper care and food, the smallness is an acquired character. Deafness may be congenital and inborn, or it may be acquired as the result, say, of scarlet fever during childhood.

Now the inborn characters (excepting modifications in utero) are admittedly heritable, for inborn characters must exist potentially in the germ-plasm. The belief that acquired characters are also inherited, therefore, involves belief that in some way the trait acquired by the

!parent is incorporated in the germ-plasm of the parent, to be handed on to the child and reappear in the course of the child's development. The impress on the parental body must in some way be transferred to the parental germ-plasm; and not as a general influence, but as a specific one which can be reproduced by the germ-plasm.

This idea was held almost without question by the biologists of the

past, from Aristotle on. Questionings indeed arose from time to time, but they were vague and carried no weight, until a generation ago several able men elaborated them. For many years, it was the question of chief dispute in the study of heredity. The last word has not yet  been  said on it. It has theoretical bearings of immense importance; for our conception of the process of evolution will be shaped according to the belief that acquired characters are or are not inherited. Herbert

Spencer went so far as to say, "Close contemplation of the facts impresses me more strongly than ever with two alternatives--either that there has been inheritance of acquired characters, or there has been no evolution." But its practical bearings are no less momentous. Again to quote Spencer: "Considering the width and depth of the effects which the acceptance or non-acceptance of one or the other of these hypotheses must have on our views of life, the question, Which of them is true? demands beyond all other questions whatever the attention of scientific men. A grave responsibility rests on biologists in respect of the

!general question, since wrong answers lead, among other effects, to wrong belief about social affairs and to disastrous social actions."

!Biologists certainly have not shirked this "grave responsibility" during the last 30 years, and they have, in our opinion, satisfactorily answered the general question. The answer they give is not the answer Herbert Spencer gave.

But the popular mind frequently lags a generation behind, in its grasp of the work of science, and it must be said that in this case the

popular mind is still largely under the influence of Herbert Spencer and his school. Whether they know it or not, most people who have not made a particular study of the question still tacitly assume that the acquirements of one generation form part of the inborn heritage of the next, and the present social and educational systems are founded in large part on this false foundation. Most philanthropy starts out

unquestioningly with the assumption that by modifying the individual for the better, it will thereby improve the germinal quality of the race.

Even a self-styled eugenist asks, "Can prospective parents who have thoroughly and systematically disciplined themselves, physically, mentally and morally, transmit to their offspring the traits or

tendencies which they have developed?" and answers the question with the astounding statement, "It seems reasonable to suppose that they have

!this power, it being simply a phase of heredity, the tendency of like to beget like."

Free Sperm Donor

The right understanding of this famous problem is therefore fraught with the most important consequences to eugenics. The huge mass of experimental evidence that has been accumulated during the last quarter of a century has, necessarily, been almost wholly based on work with plants and lower animals. Even though we can not attempt to present a general review of this evidence, for which the reader must consult one

!of the standard works on biology or genetics, we shall point out some of the considerations underlying the problem and its solution.

In the first place, it must be definitely understood that we are dealing

only with specific, as distinguished from general, transmission. As the germ-cells derive their nourishment from the body, it is obvious that any cause profoundly affecting the latter might in that way exercise an influence on the germ-cells; that if the parent was starved, the

germ-cells might be ill-nourished and the resulting offspring might be weak and puny. There is experimental evidence that this is the case; but that is not the inheritance of an acquired character. If, however, a

white man tanned by long exposure to the tropical sun should have children who were brunettes, when the family stock was all blond; or if men whose legs were deformed through falls in childhood should have children whose legs, at birth, appeared deformed in the same manner; then there would be a distinct case of the transmission of an acquired characteristic. "The precise question," as Professor Thomson words it, "is this: Can a structural change in the body, induced by some change in use or disuse, or by a change in surrounding influence, affect the

germ-cells in such a specific or representative way that the offspring will through its inheritance exhibit, even in a slight degree, the modification which the parent acquired?" He then lists a number of

!current misunderstandings, which are so widespread that they deserve to be considered here.

It is frequently argued that unless modifications are inherited, there could be no such thing as evolution. Such pessimism is unwarranted. There is abundant

!explanation of evolution, in the abundant supply of germinal variations which every individual presents.

What is wanted are the facts; each student has a right to interpret them as he sees fit, but not to represent his interpretation as a fact. It is easy to find structural

!features in Nature which may be interpreted as resulting from the inheritance of acquired characters; but this is not the same as to say and to prove that they have resulted from such inheritance.

!It is common to beg the question by pointing to the transmission of some character that is not proved to be a modification. Herbert Spencer cited the prevalence of short-sightedness among the "notoriously studious" Germans as a defect due to the inheritance of an acquired character. But he offered no evidence that this is an acquirement rather than a germinal character. As a fact, there is reason to believe that weakness of the eyes is one of the characteristics of that race, and existed long before the Germans ever became studious--even at a time when most of them could neither read nor write.

The reappearance of a modification may be mistaken for the transmission of a modification. Thus a blond European family moves to the tropics, and the parents become tanned. The children who grow up under the tropical sun are tanned from infancy; and after the grandchildren or great-grandchildren appear, brown from childhood, some one points to the case as an instance of permanent modification of

skin-colour. But of course the children at the time of birth are as white as their distant cousins in Europe, and if taken back to the North to be

brought up, would be no darker than their kinsmen who had never been in the tropics. Such "evidence" has often been brought forward by careless

!observers, but can deceive no one who inquires carefully into the facts.

!In the case of diseases, re-infection is often mistaken for transmission. The father had pneumonia; the son later developed it; ergo, he must have inherited it. What evidence is there that the son in this case did not get it from an entirely different source? Medical literature is heavily burdened with such spurious evidence.
CALEB SALEEBY’S Parenthood & Race Culture: An Outline of Family Eugenics