The Super Race: An American Problem.

by Scott Nearing.

CHAPTER I

THE CALL OF THE SUPER RACE

As a very small boy, I distinctly remember that stories of the discovery of America and Australia, of the exploration of Central Africa and of the invention of the locomotive, the steamboat, and the telegraph made a deep impression on my childish mind; and I shall never forget going one day to my mother and saying:--

"Oh, dear, I wish I had been born before everything was discovered and invented. Now, there is nothing left for me to do."

Brooding over it, and wondering why it should be so, my boyish soul felt deeply the tragedy of being born into an uneventful age. I fully believed that the great achievements of the world were in the past. Imagine then my joy when, in the course of my later studies, it slowly dawned upon me that the age in which I lived was, after all, an age of unparalleled activity. I saw the much vaunted discoveries and inventions of by-gone days in their true proportions. They no longer prempted the whole world--present and future, as well as past, but, freed from romance, they ranged themselves in the form of a foundation upon which the structure of civilization is building. The successive steps in human achievement, from the use of fire to the harnessing of electricity, const.i.tuted a process of evolution creating "a stage where every man must play his part"--a part expanding and broadening with each succeeding generation; and I saw that I had a place among the actors in this play of progress. The forward steps of the past need not, and would not prevent me from achieving in the present--nay, they might even make a place, if I could but find it, for my feet; they might hold up my hands, and place within my grasp the keen tools with which I should do my work.

The school boy, pa.s.sing from an att.i.tude of contemplation and wonder before the things of the past into an att.i.tude of active recognition of the necessities of the present, pa.s.sed through the evolutionary process of the race. The savage, Sir Henry Maine tells us, lives in a state of abject fear, bound hand and foot by the sayings and doings of his ancestors and blinded by the terrors of nature. The lightning flashes, and the untutored mind, trembling, bows before the wrath of a jealous G.o.d; the harvest fails, and the savage humbly submits to the vengeance of an incensed deity; pestilence destroys the people, and the primitive man sees in this catastrophe a punishment inflicted on him for his failure to propitiate an exacting spirit--in these and a thousand other ways uncivilized peoples accept the phenomena in which nature displays her power, as the expressed will of an omnipotent being. One course alone is open to them; they must bow down before the unknown, accepting as inevitable those forces which they neither can understand nor conquer.

Civilization has meant enlightenment and achievement. In lightning, Franklin saw a potent giant which he enslaved for the service of man; in famine, Burbank discovered a lack of proper adjustment between the soil and the crops that men were cultivating--thereupon he produced a wheat that would thrive on an annual rainfall of twelve inches; in pestilence, Pasteur recognized the ravages of an organism which he prepared to study and destroy. Lightning, famine and pestilence are, to the primitive man, the threatening of a wrathful G.o.d; but to the progressive thinker they are merely forces which must be utilized or counteracted in the work of human achievement.

As a boy, I believed my opportunities to be limited by the achievements of the past. As a man, I see in these past achievements not hindrances, but the foundation stones which the past has laid down, upon which the present must build, in order that the future may erect the perfected structure of a higher civilization. I see all of this clearly, and I see one thing more. In the old days which I had erstwhile envied, one event of world import might have been chronicled for each decade, but in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, such an event may be chronicled for each year, or month or even for each day. The achievements of the past were noteworthy: these of the present are stupendous.

The process of social evolution reveals itself in these progressive steps.

Because the past has built, the present is building--building in order that the future may stand higher in its realization of potential life. The past was an age of uncertain, hesitating advance. The present, an age of dynamic achievement, leads on into the future of human development.

In the twentieth century:

1. Knowledge provides a basis for activity.

2. The social atmosphere palpitates with enthusiastic resolve and abounds in n.o.ble endeavor.

3. There is work for each one to perform.

The despondent boy has thus evolved into the enthusiastic worker whose watchword is "Forward!"--forward towards a new goal, whose very existence is made attainable through the achievements of the past: a goal before which the triumphs of bygone ages pale into insignificance.

The past worked with things. Pyramids were built, cities constructed, mountains tunneled, trade augmented, fortunes ama.s.sed. Hear Ruskin's comment on this devotion to material wealth: "Nevertheless, it is open, I repeat, to serious question, ... whether, among national manufactures, that of souls of a good quality may not at last turn out a quite lucrative one. Nay, in some far-away and yet undreamed of hour, I can even imagine that England ... as a Christian mother, may at last attain to the virtues and the treasures of a heathen one, and be able to lead forth her sons, saying: 'These are my jewels.'"[1]

The past worked with things: the future, rising higher in the scale of civilization, must work with men--with the plastic, living clay of humanity. As Solomon long ago said, "He that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that taketh a city." The men of the past built cities and took them. They brought the forces of nature into subjection and remodeled the world as a living place for humanity, yet, save for a shadow in Rome and an echo from Greece, there is scarcely a trace in history of a consistent attempt to evolve n.o.bler men.

Material objects have cost the nations untold effort, but human fiber--the life blood of nations--has been overlooked or forgotten. The world is weary of this emphasis on things and this forgetfulness of men; the ether trembles with the clamor for manhood. The fields, white to harvest, are awaiting the laborers who, building on the discoveries and inventions of things in the past, will so mold the human clay of the present that the future may boast a society of men and women possessing the qualities of the Super Race.

What is a Super Race? Nothing more nor less than a race representing, in the aggregate, the qualities of the Super Man--the qualities which enable one possessing them to live what Herbert Spencer described so luminously as a "complete life," namely,--

1. Physical normality.

2. Mental capacity.

3. Concentration.

4. Aggressiveness.

5. Sympathy.

6. Vision.

These characteristics of the Super Man express themselves in his activity:

1. Physical normality provides energy.

2. Mental capacity gives mental grasp.

3. Aggressiveness. } } produce efficiency.

4. Concentration. } 5. Sympathy leads to harmony with things and coperation with men.

6. Vision shows itself in ideals.

The energy to do; and the mental grasp to appreciate; together with the capacity to choose efficiently, furnish the basis for achievement.

Achievement, however, is not in itself a guarantee of worth unless its course is shaped by sympathy and directed toward a goal which is determined by the prophetic power of vision. Such are the characteristics which, combined in one individual, insure completeness of life. About them, philosophers have reasoned and poets have sung. They are the acme of human perfection--the ideal of individual attainment.

Though they have been thus idealized, these qualities are not new. They have existed for ages, as they exist to-day, occasionally combined in one individual but usually appearing separately in members of the social group. They form part of the heritage of the human race, and in spite of neglect and lack of fostering, they are widespread in all sections of the population. The production of a race of men and women, a great majority of whom shall possess these qualities, will mean the next great step in human achievement.

The Super Man has lived for ages. The Greeks traced the descent of their heroes and heroines--their Super Men--from the G.o.ds. It was thus that they explained exceptional ability. Exceptional men live to-day, as they did in ancient Greece, directing the thought and work of the times. They possess the qualities of the Super Man--physical normality, mental capacity, aggressiveness, concentration, sympathy and vision; and, above all, we now understand that they are not the offspring of the G.o.ds, but the sons of men and women whose combined parental qualities inevitably produced Super Men. The Super Man is not a theory, nor an accident, but a natural product of natural conditions.

Though the Super Man may be met with occasionally in modern society, and though the qualities ascribed to him are manifest everywhere among those who have had an opportunity for their development; opinions still differ as to the possibility of producing a Super Race. An even greater difference of opinion is encountered when an attempt is made to formulate the means which should be adopted to secure such an end; yet there can be little difference of opinion as to the desirability, from a national as well as from an individual standpoint, of creating a race of Super Men.

The call of the present age for a Super Race is thus voiced by Yeats,[2]

"O Silver Trumpets! Be you lifted up, And cry to the great race that is to come.

Long throated swans, amid the Waves of Time, Sing loudly, for beyond the wall of the World It waits, and it may hear and come to us."

We long for the coming of the Super Race. We aim toward this goal. Can it be compa.s.sed in finite time? Is Nietzsche right when he says,--"I teach you beyond-man." "All beings. .h.i.therto have created something beyond themselves." "What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal."

"Not whence ye come, be your honor in the future, but whither ye go!" "In your children ye shall make amends for being your father's children. Thus ye shall redeem all that is past."[3]

Shall we make amends to the future? Come, then, let us reason together concerning the measures which must be adopted to raise the standard of succeeding generations. There are three means which lie ready at hand: three sciences which lend themselves to our task: three tools with which we may shape the Super Race. They are:

1. Eugenics--The science of race culture.

2. Social adjustment--The science of molding inst.i.tutions.

3. Education--The science of individual development.

The science of Eugenics treats of those forces which, through the biologic processes of heredity, may be relied upon to provide the inherited qualities of the Super Race. The science of Social Adjustment treats of those forces which, through the modification of social inst.i.tutions, may be relied upon to provide a congenial environment for the Super Race. The science of Education aims to a.s.sist the child in unfolding and developing the hereditary qualities of the Super Man, provided through eugenic guarantees. Hence, Eugenics, Social Adjustment and Education are sciences, the mastery of which is a pre-requisite to the development of the Super Race.

CHAPTER II

EUGENICS--THE SCIENCE OF RACE CULTURE

The object of Eugenics is the conscious improvement of the human race by the application of the laws of heredity to human mating. Eugenics is the logical fruition of the progress in biologic science made during the nineteenth century.

The laws of heredity, studied in minute detail, have been applied with marvelous success in the vegetable and animal kingdoms. "Is there any good reason," demands the eugenist, "why the formulas which have operated to re-combine the physical properties of plants and animals, should not in like measure operate to modify the physical properties of men and women?"

The studies which have been made of eye color, length of arm, head shape, and other physical traits show that the same laws of heredity which apply in the animal and vegetable kingdoms apply as well in the kingdom of man.

Since the species of plants and animals with which man has experimented have been improved by selective breeding, there seems to be no good reason why the human race should not be susceptible of similar improvement. What intelligent farmer sows blighted potatoes? Where is the dog fancier who would strive to rear a St. Bernard from a mongrel dam? Neither yesterday nor yet to-morrow do men gather grapes of thorns. Those who have to do with life in any form, aware of this fact, refuse to permit propagation except among the best members of a species: hence with each succeeding generation the ox increases in size and strength; the apple in color; the sweet pea in perfume; and the horse in speed. Is this law of improving species a universal law? Alas, no! it rarely if ever applies in the selection of men and women for parenthood. The human species has not, during historic times, improved either in physique, in mental capacity, in aggressiveness, in concentration, in sympathy or in vision. Nay, there are not wanting thoughtful students who affirm that in almost every one of these respects the exact contrary holds true.