Nature in her own way is a eugenist.  By her slow processes she is continually wiping out the unfit and adapting man to the environment where he must live.  Perhaps by saving too many of the unfit man is more or less interfering with the processes of Nature, and it may be that the interference with her method of work is bad.  But Nature is mindful of this tendency and if it is not in accordance with the profoundest laws of being, Nature will have her way in spite of man’s meddling.  Any change that can be brought about by selective mating must come by natural processes aided by the education of each individual through a closer study of the origin and evolution of life.  This must leave everyone free to do his own selecting, rather than to trust it to the state.  Society can do much toward giving man an environment which will more or less be adjusted to his heredity.  To give him a heredity that will conform to his environment is quite another thing and probably must be kept practically free from the theories, vagaries and experiments of man.  It would seem so absurd and dangerous as not to be worth discussing except for the fact that the movement, both for sterilizing and some degree of control of mating has already gone far in some of the states.  There is no limit that fanaticism or hatred will respect.

No doubt the popular opinion that in some way crime and pauperism are inherited has been strengthened by the literature concerning the family that has been given the name of “The Jukes.”  The first extensive study of this family was made by Richard L. Dugdale, who was connected with the New York Prison Association.  It was first published in 1877 and may almost be regarded as the “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” of the scientific study of crime in America.

Mr. Dugdale was evidently a careful student, an honest investigator and a humane man.  Strange to say, deductions have been freely and carelessly made from his book, which the investigations do not warrant, and against which he carefully cautioned the reader.  No one can examine Mr. Dugdale’s book without being impressed with the quiet unassuming modesty and worth of the author, and yet in the hands of those who have so often carelessly and unscientifically generalized from his studies, it has possibly brought more harm than good.

The book covers investigations made by Dugdale between 1850 and 1870, a period in which little was known about the laws that govern inheritance, and necessarily, much evidence was pure hearsay without the data of careful investigation at hand.  The case, however, does show a surprising number of criminals, paupers, harlots and misfits, descending from their original ancestor.  From time to time further investigation has brought the history of the family down to 1918.