CHAPTER III!
Kettlebell Set Manchester Salford
!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.
!Common enough
as applied to mental qualities, the theory of human equality is even more widely
held of "moral" qualities. Men are considered to be equally
responsible for their conduct, and failure to conform to the accepted code in
this respect brings punishment. It is sometimes conceded that men have had
differing opportunities to learn the principles of morality; but given equal
opportunities, it is almost universally held that failure to follow the
principles indicates not inability but unwillingness. In short, public opinion
rarely admits that men may differ in their inherent capacity to act morally.
In view of its
almost universal and unquestioned, although half unconscious, acceptance as
part of the structure of society, it
becomes of the utmost importance that this doctrine of human equality
should be
!examined by
scientific methods.
!Fortunately
this can be done with ease. Methods of mental and physical measurement that
have been evolved during the last few decades offer results that admit of no
refutation, and they can be applied in hundreds of different places.
![Illustration: DISTRIBUTION
OF 10-YEAR-OLD SCHOOL CHILDREN
FIG. 8.--The
graph shows that 10-year-old children in
!Connecticut
(1903) are to be found in every grade, from the first to the eighth. The
greatest number is in the fourth grade, and the number who are advanced is just
about the same as the number who are retarded.]
!It will not be
worth while to spend any time demonstrating that all individuals differ, at
birth and during their subsequent life, physically. The fact is patent to all.
It carries with it as a necessary corollary mental differences, since the brain
is part of the body; nevertheless, we shall demonstrate these mental
differences independently.
No matter what
trait of the individual be chosen, results are analogous. If one takes the
simplest traits, to eliminate the most chances for confusion, one finds the
same conditions every time. Whether it be 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 figures, 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 being alike, either mentally or
physically, at birth or any time thereafter.
!Whenever a
large enough number of individuals is tested, these differences arrange
themselves in the same general form. It is the form assumed by the distribution
of any differences that are governed absolutely by chance.
If then, the
results of all the tests that have been made on all mental traits be studied,
it will be found that human mental ability as shown in at least 95% of all the
traits that have been measured, is
distributed
throughout the race in various degrees, in accordance with the law of chance,
and that if one could measure all the members of the species and plot a curve
for these measurements, in any trait, he would get this smooth, continuous
curve. In other words, human beings are not sharply divided into classes, but
the differences between them shade off into each other, although between the
best and the worst, in any
!respect, there
is a great gulf.
If this
statement applies to simple traits, such as memory for numbers, it must also
apply to combinations of simple traits in complex mental processes. For
practical purposes, we are therefore justified in saying
!that in respect
of any mental quality,--ability, industry, efficiency, persistence,
attentiveness, neatness, honesty, anything you like,--in any large group of
people, such as the white inhabitants of the United States, some individuals
will be found who show the character in question in a very low degree, some who
show it in a very high degree; and there will be found every possible degree in
between.
The consequences
of this for race progress are significant. Is it
desired to
eliminate feeble-mindedness? Then it must be borne in mind that there is no
sharp distinction between feeble-mindedness and the normal mind. One can not
divide sheep from goats, saying "A is
feeble-minded. B
is normal. C is feeble-minded. D is normal," and so on.
If one took a
scale of a hundred numbers, letting 1 stand for an idiot and 100 for a genius,
one would find individuals corresponding to every
single number on
the scale. The only course possible would be a somewhat arbitrary one; say to
consider every individual corresponding to a grade under seven as feeble-minded.
It would have to be recognised that those graded eight were not much better
than those graded seven, but the drawing of the line at seven would be
justified on the ground that it
!had to be drawn
somewhere, and seven seemed to be the most satisfactory point.
In practice of
course, students of retardation test children by standardised scales. Testing a
hundred 10-year-old children, the examiner might find a number who were able to
do only those tests which are passed by a normal six-year-old child. He might
properly decide to put all who thus showed four years of retardation, in the
class of
feeble-minded;
and he might justifiably decide that those who tested seven years (i.e., three
years mental retardation) or less would, for the present, be given the benefit
of the doubt, and classed among the possibly normal. Such a procedure, in
dealing with intelligence, is necessary and justifiable, but its adoption must
not blind students, as it often does, to the fact that the distinction made is
an arbitrary
one, and that
there is no more a hard and fast line of demarcation
!between
imbeciles and normals than there is between "rich men" and "poor
men."
!The
investigation in this direction need not be pursued any farther. For the
purpose of eugenics, it is sufficient to recognise that great differences exist
between men, and women, not only in respect of physical traits, but equally in
respect of mental ability.
!This conclusion
might easily have been reached from a study of the facts in Chapter I, but it
seemed worth while to take time to present the
fact in a more concrete form as
the result of actual measurements. The evidence allows no doubt about the
existence of considerable mental and physical differences between men.
!The question
naturally arises, "What is the cause of these differences?"
The study of
twins showed that the differences could not be due to differences in training
or home surroundings. If the reader will think
back over the
facts set forth in the first chapter, he will see clearly
!that the
fundamental differences in men can not be due to anything that happens after
they are born; and the facts presented in the second chapter showed that these
differences can not be due in an important degree to any influences acting on
the child prior to birth.
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