^^\\E•UNIVEW/4 -•(\FrAnFnp.^.. ^01^^ >\\. ..^i-itHKAKU// <>^llmHAK^/•y/ ,^,\^^•V^'tv!:^^// .jnvjjo>^ ,OFTAllFO/?.f. S^ ^^^iliDNY-SOr^' PERSONAL BEAUTY AND RACIAL BETTERMENT PERSONAL BEAUTY AND RACIAL BETTERMENT BY KNIGHT DUNLAP PROFESSOR OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY IN THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVEKSITY ST. LOUIS C. V. MOSBY COMPANY 1920 Copyright, 1920, By C. V. Mosby Company (^All Rights Reserved) Press of C. V. Mosby Company St. Louis FOREWORD From several persons who have read the manu- script of this essay, and from a larger number who have read the first part, I have received criticisms which are reducible to two main points: First, that I make the procreation of children the pre- dominant ideal in marriage, minimizing compan- ionship and other '' spiritual" factors. Second, that although I call attention to various unsatis- factory conditions of sex relations, I have no prac- tical reform program to propose. Both of these points I admit without apology, and to both of them I wish to direct the readers' attention. I agree thoroughly with the position of the Church (as I understand that position), in declaring that the highest '^ spiritual" values of marriage result when it is most perfectly adapt- ated to its primary end. As a psychologist, I have the psychologist's prejudice, that ideals, in- tellectual analysis, and education are the funda- mental forces of progress, and that laws, conven- tions, and customs serve to consolidate and make secure the gains achieved through these forces. The first part of this essay consists, with some additions, of an address delivered in April, 1917, 11 12 FOREWORD before the Association of Physical Directors of "Women's Colleges, the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and the Faculty and Students of Randolph-Macon College, at Lynch- burg, Va. ; and published in the Psycliological Re- vieiv for May, 1918. K. D. Baltimore, Md. January 1, 1920. CONTENTS PART I THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BEAUTY Page The Significance op Beauty 15 General Negative Charactees 18 Detailed Chaeacters of Beauty 21 PART II THE CONSERVATION OF BEAUTY The Conservation of Beauty 55 Practical Steps in Conservation 65 Incest and Inbreeding 70 Improvement in Sexual Selection 75 The Selection of Male Parents 89 PERSONAL BEAUTY AND RACIAL BETTERMENT PART I THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BEAUTY Human beauty is something which is peren- nially celebrated in poetry, in song, in romance, and in the petrified conception of the sculptor, but less frequently considered in the cold analysis of science. We are usually content to leave the topic to the artist and the lover, as one of the in- teresting and thrilling, but nonessential, matters of life. I wish to suggest a different conception of beauty: a conception of beauty as something which, whatever its importance for the individual, is for the race and for civilization of such pro- found importance that no other fundamental con- sideration of human welfare and progress can be divorced from it. I shall not touch upon the theme with the golden fingers of the artist, but with the unemotional digits of the psychologist. To some, without doubt, this procedure will seem as sacri- legious as the piercing of the anatomist's knife into the dead human form; but where the wel- 15 16 Personal Beauty fare and progress of humanity are at stake, even these brutal methods must be employed. Beauty is a term of variable meaning; in fact there is a group of terms — handsome, pretty, at- tractive, charming, etc. — whose exact relationship is often discussed, and never settled. The way in which I use the term will not be acceptable to many persons, but one may refonnulate my con- clusions in his own way, using whatever terms he chooses, and the validity of the conclusions will not thereby be affected. I think it will be agreed, when I am through, that I have been discussing something rather definite under the name of beauty, and I hope further, that it will be conceded that, after all, what I have been discussing is that which in the common, and therefore vital, usage is actually designated by the term. The familiar proverb tells us that ''beauty is only skin deep," which nicely exemplifies the mendacity of proverbs ; ugliness, it is true, is often skin deep, but beauty, never. Beauty, as I hope to be able to show, is something which depends upon the whole organism. The conditions of beauty are in part negative, in part positive. That is to say, there are certain conditions which a person must satisfy in order to be classed as beautiful, yet which do not in themselves contribute to beauty; other conditions, such that their fulfillment constitutes beauty, or Racial Betterment 17 at least constitutes a certain element in the total beauty. Among the negative conditions are, for example, the lack of deformity. A hunchbacked woman or a baldheaded man is debarred by the deformity mentioned from being classed as beauti- ful, but the fact of having a straight back or of having hair on the head is not necessarily in it- self a positive element of beauty. The negative condition is one which may be fulfilled, and yet the individual not be beautiful and not even have the corresponding detail of beauty. The positive conditions, on the other hand, are those which taken together in their fulfillment cause the per- son to be classed as beautiful. Some of these de- tails may be present, and yet on account of other negative or positive factors, the total may not constitute beauty. Nevertheless we say that, in these details at least, a person does possess beauty. This distinction between positive and negative elements, I am well aware, is not fundamental; it is at best a distinction of degree and convenience. But it is a convenience, for purposes of presenta- tion at least, and we may make use of it while noting the fact that too great dependence upon it is fallacious. I shall consider first, therefore, the general negative conditions in order to clear the way for a treatment of the more detailed condi- tions, which, although involving both positive and 18 Personal Beauty negative elements, are better treated from the positive point of view. I shall consider herein, primarily, only visible details. Qualities of voice, peculiarities of odor, tactual details, and so on, I shall notice only in so far as they are directly associated with visual characters. This is in accordance with the usual practice which makes beauty essentially a visible phenomenon and only secondarily a phenomenon which appeals to other senses. General Negative Characters 1. Signs of race. There are certain negative details of stature, feature, color and movement and habits which are important because they in- dicate in the first instance a race or species of the human family against which, for reasons which may be instinctive or due to education, there is a prejudice. Facial proportions, for in- stance, which in themselves have no value, may yet indicate or suggest a branch of the human family against whom we entertain a certain bias. If we despise the Irish, an Irish cast of coun- tenance cannot be beautiful to us. If we have an antipathy to the German or Russian or the French people, the type of face which suggests these people, even though there is no indication of actual blood of the race, is a factor making against beauty. The commonest instance of this Racial Betterment 19 sort of negative condition is found in the negroid characters. Here, where the suggestion or indica- tion is of an inferior race, the negative condition is especially important. 2. Signs of disease, deformity or weakness. Any indication, not merely of physical weakness, but even in some instances of mental or moral weakness or disease is of decided negative effect. One who looks like an imbecile or like a criminal is never beautiful; one who seems to have, or suggests, a deadly disease, is to that extent lack- ing in beauty. To a certain degree, these mental and moral standards are relative to the grade of the observer. A weak-minded person has not the objection to the weak-minded person of his own grade that the more normal person has, but I suspect that the person of low mental grade has a certain preference for the normal person. As regards disease and deformity, there is no ques- tion. A hunchbacked or an anemic man regards his characteristic as a decided bar to beauty. 3. Significant deviation from the average is a negative characteristic, even if the deviation can- not be classed as a "deformity." Dwarfs and giants, exceedingly thin and unusually broad in- dividuals; those whose legs are too long for their bodies, or vice versa; those whose ears are mis- placed, or whose hair is of an unearthly shade, are ruled out by their oddity, regardless of what these 20 Personal Beauty peculiarities signify. They may be good, clever, or admirable, but never beautiful. These details are in part relative. Among cer- tain African tribes, whose men are uniformly over seven feet tall, and as thin as a rail, a normal Anglo-Saxon is probably not beautiful. Among other African tribes, and certain islanders of the Pacific, a woman is not considered beautiful un- less she reaches a degree and a distribution of fatness which makes her either repulsive or comical to European eyes. This relativity is, however, only superficial. The type which is highest in value tends to approximate the Eu- ropean type, wherever the European type becomes known. All dark races prefer white skin, and it is a general rule that the female of the inferior race prefers the male of the superior race to the male of her own race, no matter how striking the difference. That the inferior male considers the superior female more beautiful than the female of his own race is indicated everywhere, and clearly demonstrated among the Turks. Deviation from the common type, then, is a drawback only when it is not a deviation towards the acknowledged superior type of another race. The conservative dislike for the unusual in gen- eral is tempered by approval when the unusual is clearly a mark of racial superiority. This will Racial Betterment 21 find its ready explanation when we consider the positive side of beauty. 4. Misplaced sex characters. A specific form of the abnormal, bnt one which is important enough to justify separation from the foregoing class, is the possession by individuals of one sex of characteristics properly belonging to the other. This is an invariable negative qualification in the eyes of healthy observers. The effeminate man and the masculine woman can be beautiful only to the moral pervert. The importance of this indi- cation is very great, as we shall see later, and however little it may mean consciously to a given individual, the habit of reacting against it has been strongly developed in the human race. Detailed Characters of Beauty So much, in brief, for the general negative characters of beauty. We come now to more de- tailed characters, which have on the whole a posi- tive value, although some of them have negative aspects as well. 1. Stature. From the point of view of the fe- male, the male must be large, although not a giant, since, as we have seen, too great a deviation from the usual is a negative condition. I have at va- rious times overheard women, who were discus- sing the relative handsomeness of two or several men, settle the point by such an observation as 22 Personal Beauty *'^ is fully an incli taller than 5." By carefully put questions I have succeeded in eliciting a con- siderable amount of information on this point without revealing the actual purpose of the in- terrogation. For example, if I inquire of a woman concerning the handsomeness of a man who has a general combination of desirable and undesirable characteristics, but who is a trifle below medium height, I very frequently obtain, in her first state- ment, a criticism of his stature, followed by a con- sideration of his other attributes; indicating that in her estimation size is of paramount importance. The determining factor is not, of course, mere height but height combined with lateral develop- ment not deviating markedly from the average proportion. The tall man of bean-pole build is not considered attractive. Yet, a positive element of height can outweigh a considerable element of disproportion, and a taller man, whose propor- tions are in themselves worse than those of a shorter man, is usually considered the handsomer. This preference for stature undoubtedly harks back to more primitive times, when it was above all important that man should be a fighter and hunter, in order to secure food for his wife and children, and protect them against wild beasts and against the designs of other males. Espe- cially was this important during the periods when the woman was pregnant, or nursing a child. It Racial Betterment 23 is highly probable that in ancient times the nega- tive rule against abnormal size did not apply, since every increase in physical power, even if carried to the extreme of gigantic development, was a dis- tinct advantage. It is sometimes alleged that the woman 's prefer- ence is not for the large man in an absolute sense, but for the man larger than herself; either because of a natural wish for a husband to whom she is inferior; to whom she can give a tribute of wor- ship and deference; or else, that it has developed through the necessity of the greater strength on the part of the man in order that he might cap- ture the woman, and carry her away from her parental habitat, to his own dwelling. Both of these suggestions are highly unplausible. Mar- riage by capture, although a good hypothesis for popular writers, probably never was at any time an institution of any more importance or actu- ality than it is at the present day. Psychologi- cally, the theory is based on the assumption that woman is naturally opposed to the marital rela- tion, which assumption is a merry jest, to say the least. Historically, there is no evidence for the theory of capture except as a limited and tempo- rary phenomenon. As for the supposition of an unexplained instinct to prefer a dominant partner, I see no support for it, except in so far as the prac- tical consideration I have advanced may itself 24 Personal Beauty lead to this preference as a secondary manifesta- tion. It is true that there are women today who openly state that the mates they want are those who can completely dominate them ; and that snch potential masters are the only men who interest them. These cases (a number have been directly reported to me) are not all to be explained on the same basis, although the primary factor in every case is the admiration for the strong man. In some cases, the preference is distinctly a path- ological development; in others, it is pretended by the woman as an explanation for the fact that men are not interested in her. In many cases, however, the preference is the expression of an arbitrary standard which is manifested usually in less egotistical ways. Where a scale of values is accepted, there is commonly a more or less explicit adoption of a minimal acceptable value; the stronger man is the more desirable; a man who measures up to a certain minimum will be accept- able. In most cases, the minimal standard adopted is the father, a brother, or some other im- pressive individual in real life or in fiction. In the case of a strongly egotistical woman, who sets a high value on her own potentialities, the stand- ard is herself; the man less forceful than herself is below the minimum. In this, I seem to be confusing physical strength with various sorts of power; perhaps I am; but, Racial Betterment 25 as I am trying to point out, the basis of power is muscular, and admiration for physical prowess still retains a primacy when it is a matter of the fundamental attraction of the woman to the man; and all I am trying to establish at this point is that there is no primary desire of the woman for a man who is able to dominate her physically. On the contrary, the woman would prefer, if other considerations did not prevent, the mate whom she can control physically and in every other way, for the instinct to dominate is inherent in every normal human being. Under present conditions, the preference of the large woman is accentuated, and that of the small woman reduced, by social factors, especially the fear of ridicule. The weakness of the small man is made conspicuous by the contrast with a giant wife; compared, on the other hand, with a di- minutive wife, his inefficiency is less emphasized. From the point of view of the male, the ques- tion of stature is less simple. There seems to be no general preference for small women or for large women; but a truly relative preference for smaller women. Of course, I am well aware that there is a wide range of individual preferences, not all of which are explicable from available data; but I am speaking of generalities, which are certainly discoverable, in spite of individual dif- ferences. This general relative preference in the 26 Personal Beauty matter of stature is complicated by the curious double preference of the male, which is so strik- ingly demonstrated by theatrical studies, and to which I shall make brief reference later. The primitive reason which leads woman to prefer a large man has no correspondence in the necessities of the male. The male has not the need for protection at certain periods which the woman has. While the addition of a husky female to the savage's fighting force would seem to be a prime advantage, the advantage is largely lost because at the precise times when the aggressive resources of the family are most fully needed, the woman is not in condition to exert her strength, without serious injury to herself. The physical strength of the woman is not to be counted on, and hence the stronger woman is not a greater asset to the family, and hence no more desirable. It is true, there have been and still are, races in which the physical strength of the women has been counted on, especially for agricultural du- ties (e. g., the American Indians) ; and among them, possibly (I am not certain on this point), stature has been a mark of beauty. But where female strength is counted on, it is necessarily utilized at times when grave damage is done to the woman, and those races which have counted on it have gone down. The races which have early developed chivalry, as we may well desig- Racial Betterment 27 nate the protective attitude, are the races which have developed civilization, and which must con- tinue to dominate the world unless civilization is to be abandoned, and the human race plunged downward into bestial degeneracy. Stature, therefore, except in so far as it may be involved indirectly in some of the factors which I shall yet consider, is not and cannot be a mark of female beauty in a civilized race. On the other hand, by this very fact, the preference for a part- ner whom he can dominate is allowed full sway in the male. The woman would have the same preference, as I pointed out a moment ago, were it not checked by other factors. I may digress for a moment, to remind you that in a family one person must control. This is not a theory, but an empirical fact against which ar- gument is futile. Economic conditions which are as yet but dreamed of, especially those conditions which result from the greater and greater use of machinery, may in future change this; but it was the law of the primitive family, and even yet we have not reached a stage of civilization in which a joint legislative authority is possible. In the past it has been, the male who has controlled, but that may be changed in the future. It is true that Bachofen and others have tried to establish the doctrine of the matriarchiate (the rule of women) as the primitive family system, but the confusion 28 Personal Beauty on wliicli this theory was based has been readily exposed. Never in the history of the globe did woman have the political and social power she holds today, and suffrage cannot increase it. 2. Bodily proportions. In modern civilization there has grown up an immodesty which was lack- ing in more ancient cultures. We are ashamed of our bodies. Whether the practice of concealing the body is the cause of our uncleanness of mind, or whether our obscenity is rather the cause of the concealment, is a debated question. Whatever may be my general estimate of the Japanese, I cannot but admire their wonderful cleanness of mind, which makes for them clothing a detail which has no bearing on modesty. Among the Greeks, who, as you know, were in many respects more pure-minded than we are, bodily conformation was an important detail in beauty. And, in fact, it is today amongst us, both in a shame-faced way in daily life, and more cred- itably when we throw off our prudishness in the presence of plastic and pictorial art, and in the theater. We are skirting here a vital and pressing problem of the present moment, on which I should like to take the time to make you -face some prob- lems we all tend to ignore, but I must not digress further. Our standards of bodily development are still, in the main, Greek. There are certain proportions Racial Betterment 29 which are judged both by the artist and the lay- man to be the ideal of beauty. In this we are of course swayed largely by the limitations of our education, which on these matters is artificial; probably there would be a greater difference in racial ideals, if conditions were more natural. The simplest explanation for the accepted ideal of form would be that it is the average form of the healthy individual. This explanation, I think, is not supportable. Among the Greeks and Ko- mans, for example, the ideal ankle, for a woman at least, was a small ankle, not a medium-sized one. Among us, a small foot has been desirable; so much so that women have been compelled to wear shoes which, by raising the heel several inches, make the ground-base of the shoe about two thirds the real length of the foot. This proce- dure makes the foot seem shorter, or at least it did until the recent shortening of the skirt brought the artifice out where it cannot be over- looked. One of the most important and desira- ble effects of the permanent adoption of sensible clothing by women will be the allowing of the foot to retain its natural form. Of body-form, which is by rights the fundamental consideration in beauty, I shall say nothing further, because our standards are so obscure. The subject is in need of thorough investigation by the methods of 30 Personal Beauty comparative anatomy, and above all, of social psychology. 3. The Features. "Whatever the cause of our concealment of the body, it has led to an emphasis on the anatomical details of the face which could not be found in more primitive times. Leaving out of consideration the general shape of the face and head, which are probably important mainly as racial signs, we may consider briefly the chin, the nose, the eyes and the ears. That there is a preference on the part of both sexes, and in the consideration of both sexes, for a well-developed chin, is a matter of common knowledge. The reason for this preference is less evident, and in fact I can here indicate only a strong probability. Eacial factors are involved, of course, but there seems to be a more general foundation which is vaguely involved in the com- monplace statement, that the possession of a chin is one of the conspicuous points which differen- tiate man from the beasts. This is obviously true; the vital question is: What are the direct conse- quences of this structural peculiarity? This ques- tion can be answered by reference to compara- tive anatomy and to the psychology of the thought processes. The projecting chin gives room in the mouth cavity for the human tongue, which is strikingly different from the brute tongue. The tongue of the lower animal is a long thin strip of Racial Betterment 31 muscle ; the tongue of homo sapiens is a thick mus- cular mass. A somewhat exaggerated comparison is to a leather strap, in one case, and a frog seated in the mouth in the other case. We have now ad- vanced the question one step farther, to ask what may be the advantage, if any, in the form of the human tongue. The ^nimal tongue is certainly just as well adapted to the purposes of obtaining and prepar- ing food, as the human. In some cases, it is even more efficient. But the human tongue is an im- portant instrument in the production of the most human of all attributes, language. Language is not merely the means of communicating thought; it is, as philologists have long known, and as psy- chologists have been forced somewhat unwillingly to admit, the principal means of thinking. While it is possible to think without language, language- less thought is primitive and inefficient in the com- plex conditions of civilization, and it is by no means an exaggeration to say that the develop- ment of language is a large part of the develop- ment of thought. Of course, it is not to be said that in any specific case a large tongue is an index of efficient think- ing, or that a relatively smaller chin indicates nec- essarily a relatively smaller tongue, or that the converse of either of these propositions is true. But on the whole, the development of the chin 32 Personal Beauty is concomitant with the development of thought, and hence, in races or large groups, an index of mental development. It is worthy of note here, that the marks of beauty will be found throughout to be these generalized characters, which in spe- cific cases may not be associated with the funda- mental factors which have made them important. The nose and the mouth are beauty-characters which are probably more exclusively racial in \ their significance than the chin. The broad flat nose and the thick Avide lips are often repulsive because they suggest the African, if for no other reason. But I suspect that the thick lips are also a defect because they are in themselves a hin- drance to efficient speech, and more vitally because they connote an inefficient formation of the mouth, palate and glottis. Yet it is necessary here again to point out that any of these details may be faulty in a particular case, and yet the others be so well adapted that they more than compensate; and that there may be in many cases language, efficient for thinking, but inefficient for communi- cation. Here as everywhere, our beauty judg- ments are based on conditions which are general, and to which there are many sharp exceptions. As regards the teeth, we are in no serious doubt. The beautiful teeth are the sound, regular weap- ons, which by their form and color give unmis- Racial Betterment 33 takable evidence of being efficient for chewing as well as for primitive methods of warfare. While the practical indications of the mouth are important, as I have pointed out, we should by no means overlook the probability of a sexual significance to the evaluation of which the consid- eration of other beauty characters will rapidly drive us. I need not remind you that popular theory as passed from mouth to mouth and as em- bodied in literature of all ages, considers both the mouth and the nose as practical indexes of the sex-organs; I should like to express the opinion that popular theory, even popular superstition, is the smoke which always indicates some fire. This particular popular belief is one on which it seems to me it would be worth while for directors of physical culture to make statistical observations. I need not point out the sexual function of the olfactory organ in the nose of the lower ani- mal; but I ought to warn you against the falla- cious opinion that in the human animal the nose has universally lost that function. On the con- trary, in a large proportion of the species that function has become more complex. I may add also, that in addition to the significant fact that the membrane lining a large part of the nasal cav- ities is erectile tissue, there are definite psycho- logical observations, (none published, I believe), 34 Personal Beauty which throw experimental light on the sexual re- lations of the nose. That both the eyes and ears are beauty marks, and that, in the female especially, they have been selected for especial emphasis by lovers and poets, you are well aware. Both love and poetizing, as most of us well know from our own experience, are conditions of irresponsibility in which the funda- mental instincts and habits have large sway; and the first condition usually brings on the second; accordingly the beauty-points which fix the atten- tion of poets demand our attention. But there is little to offer at present in the way of analysis of these. Aside from the indication of physical con- dition which the eyes afford (and every physician makes use of these indications) , the importance of the eye is probably largely racial. The blue or the black, the large or the small, are not in themselves of moment, but they indicate stocks from which we expect certain other characters, mental and physical. The same general consideration is prob- ably involved in ear preferences. This is how^ever by no means the whole story. Anyone who has studied the religious and art symbolism of primi- tive peoples, and of people not so primitive (I do not refer to the crude and artificial studies of the Freudians) cannot help but see very definite rea- sons for the fascination of the eye and ear, rea- sons which are more appropriately discussed Racial Betterment 35 amongst psychologists tlian before a general au- dience. Before passing on to the next topic, I wish to protect myself from possible misapprehension by disclaiming any taint of phrenology or blackford- ism in the preceding discussion. The significance of cranial and facial characters must be worked out on the lines of physiology and genetics; psy- chologists have no sympathy with the various systems of so-called character analysis wiiich at- tempt to decide from a casual examination of an individual what his intellectual and moral pecu- liarities are in detail. 4. Hair. The hair which adorns the human body (or disfigures it, as the case may be), is of two sorts, in regard to its physiological conditions and significance, as well as to its regional distribu- tion. The hair of the head, or pate-hair, is the one sort, and the body-hair, including the face-hair, is the other. The conditions which govern the growth of the pate-hair are not definitely known, but are proba- bly connected with bodily changes which have other important efi'ects. That is to say, the stimu- lation of the growth of the hair, or the failure of its vitality, are probably due to changes in the internal secretions (hormones) of the organism, although it is not known which of the secretions are the important ones in this connection. It is 36 Personal Beauty probable that another effect of the internal changes which produce baldness is a lessening of the resistance of the organism, so that the bald- lieaded man cannot stand the muscular exertion or the nervous strain of which the hairy-headed man is capable. At any rate, baldness is a fatal bar to beauty, both in the male and the female, although to many persons (men especially) an individual of the opposite sex whose pate-hair is exception- ally abundant is repulsive.* Another indication of the dependence of the pate-hair on metabolism in other regions is found in the apparent connection between hair and temperament. It is difficult to conceive of a baldheaded musical genius or artist ; although even to the rule implied here, exceptions do occur. Temperament, and all emotional fac- tors, as we now know, depend largely on the bodily metabolism, especially on the functions of the in- ternally secreting glands. The quantitative hair character, therefore, may in all probability be re- duced to an indication of physical vigor; and phys- ical vigor is far more important, as a beauty asset, than mental ability. "Whether the popular belief that the mental ability of a child is in the inverse proportion to the growth of his hair, has any foun- dation, and whether a similar rule holds for *The attractiveness of a thick head of hair on a man, from a woman's point of view, is largely tactual. A number of women have analysed this as depending on the pleasure they would derive from running their fingers through the hair. This point is substantiated by actual behavior. Racial Betterment 37 adults, I shall not discuss, as I might be accused of being prejudiced. The other details of the pate-hair character: fineness or coarseness, straightness or kinkiness, color and contour of distribution, are largely im- portant as indicators of race or stock; yet fine- ness, has a direct sex value in its greater pleas- ingness to touch. It may also be true that color has a direct value; that the masculine preference for red-haired women which is so frequent, and of which the Elizabethan and pre-Elizabethan erotic writings are so full, is not due solely to the asso- ciation of the hair color with the ardent tempera- ment which without doubt was a characteristic of the red-haired stocks ; but is in part at least due to the direct effect of the visual stimulation. All parts of the body except the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet, and certain other small areas, are covered with fine hair, which in the pre-adolescent person are usually so fine and so colorless that they are hardly noticeable. AVith the beginning of puberty, the axillary hair (the hair of the arm pits), and the hair of the pubic region in both sexes begins to develop, increasing in diameter as well as in length and in pigmenta- tion. In the male also, but slightly later, the face hair undergoes similar development, and still later the hair on the chest, abdomen, and limbs of the male develops in manners which differ greatly 38 Personal Beauty in different individuals. In the typical, function- ally perfect woman, on the other hand, the body- hair, except in the restricted regions mentioned, remains as fine and as colorless as in the child. This hair development is not associated with sexual ripening in a chance way, but is controlled by the fundamental sex glands. These glands not only produce the germ cells (the egg and the sper- matozoon) whose union creates the life of a new individual; they secrete also, into the blood stream, hormones, i. e., substances which pro- foundly influence the growth of various parts of the organism. The internal secretions of the male glands produce those changes in the vocal organs which are indicated by the voice becoming heav- ier and lower; stimulate the growth of the body- hair in the manner above indicated; and undoubt- edly promote those structural and functional changes which are evidenced in the tendencies of feeling and action distinctive of the male. If the glands are removed in infancy, these changes do not occur. The secretions of the ovaries, on the other hand, seem to inhibit the growth of body- hair, to accelerate those structural changes in the muscles, glands and skeleton which differentiate the woman from the man, and promote those func- tional modifications which make the feelings and emotions of each sex a sealed book to the other. It may be said of the important races of man- Racial Betterment 39 kind that, in general, the development of the face- and body-hair in the male, and the absence thereof in the female (except in the three limited areas), are alike an indication of fitness for parenthood. The decline of the sex function in old age is usu- ally marked by significant changes in these de- tails. There are of course many apparently anom- alous cases, some of which may be explained by glandular details into which the limitations of time forbid us to go; but in spite of these cases, the social verdict is uniform. The hairlessness of the female face and body, and the hairiness of the male face (or the evidence that the hair grows, although shaved off) are important elements of beauty. The male body-hair has little value, be- cause of its irregularity, and the fact of its usual concealment. There are a number of interesting problems which arise in connection with the body-hair. Theoretically, the pubic hair should be as beauti- ful, at least, as the pate-hair; yet the Greeks, who set our official standards, did not think so.* As to axillary hair, there is lacking information as to its indicatory value. It is an interesting observa- tion, however, and one of no little psychological importance that in recent years when the morbid *I am informed by Professor Robinson that the Greek women uniformly removed the pubic hair (usually by singeing), probably on account of pediculi. That the esthetic standard is a result of this practice is plausible. 40 Personal Beauty shame of the body was somewhat lessened, and young women began to expose their arm pits freely in the ball room and theater, some removed the axillary hair, and others did not. A little later, the practice of removing the hair became prac- tically universal, and now the hair is seldom seen. Probably the conflict of opinion in these matters is really between the man's judgment of beauty and the woman's. But we must pass over these details, and hurry on with our main problem. It is evident now that whether there are other considerations or not, the most important element in the beauty of any individual is the evidence of her (or his) fitness for the function of procreating healthy children of the highest type of efficiency, according to the standards of the race ; and ability to protect these children. The positive beauty characters we have already examined are clearly such marks of ability to perpetuate the species in the finest and noblest way, and the characters we shall now consider strengthen the interpretation. 5. Fat. Here again there are racial differ- ences, but amongst the European races, no ra- cial indications. We may leave out of considera- tion the Africans and the South Sea Islanders, with their criteria of beauty-fat which seem so odd to us, but which are quite intelligible when viewed in the light of racial characters, and con- sider Western conditions and standards. Racial Betterment 41 A certain amount of fatty tissue is normal, and is essential for the health of the individual. Fat constitutes a store of reserve material, which may be drawn on in time of unusual need ; and without it endurance is limited. This reserve store is probably not so important at present as it was in primitive times, when man lived in a hand-to- mouth way, uncertain today what the food supply would be day after tomorrow. On the other hand, beyond a certain amount, fat is an encumbrance, impeding the operation of many organs, and thus limiting the efficiency of the individual, and also is in itself a symptom of faulty organic function- ing of some kind. We are not surprised therefore to find that beauty demands just the right degree of leanness; just the degree which is found in the most vigorous individual. The standards are somewhat different for the two sexes, because the anatomical conditions and physiological necessities are different. In the fe- male, especially in the young female, there is a special layer of fatty tissue underlying the skin, which is absent in the male. This gives her the roundness and softness of outline which is essen- tial to the perfection of feminine beauty, and also prevents her from feeling the cold so much as the male does. Possibly also it explains why she swims more easily. (It is a fact that women are as a class far better swimmers ; this has been ascribed 42 Personal Beauty to tlie better development of tlie legs, but this reason is hardly sufficient, since it has been shown that leg action is the least important factor in swimming.) The softness and roundness of contour of the female is beautiful, because it is the mark of phys- ical fitness. The fatty layer is supposed to be an extra reserve supply of food material, laid up against the heavy demands which are made by child-bearing, and in still another way protects her in that supreme process, of whose splendid fruition beauty is the glorious blossom. When age withers, through the absorption of the adipose tissue, primary beauty is on the decline, and un- less it be replaced by the secondary beauty appro- priate to advancing years, the drama of life be- comes a tragedy. And indeed, the great fact that we all must face at some time, that the strength and vigor of our prime is past, and that the time when the almond tree shall flourish and the grass- hopper become a burden advances upon us, is usu- ally announced to a woman in the discovery of w^rinkles due to the slipping from her of her sub- cutaneous robe of office. 6. Complexion. The tint of the skin, of course, is largely a racial indication, but in certain re- spects, the tint, as well as the texture, is an index of health and vigor. The standard of beauty in complexion, whether light or dark, is that which Racial Betterment 43 goes with the full bloom of sexual vigor, when the human organism is at its perfect development for the perpetuation of the species. This is so obvious that it would be superfluous to discuss it further. 7. Muscular tonicity. The voluntary muscles of the body, i. e., the muscles of the face, scalp, trunk, arms and legs, are kept in a condition of tonus, by nerve currents constantly supplied to them by the motor nerves. Tonus is a state of par- tial contraction, which constitutes the readiness for action of the muscle. If the motor nerve trunk which supplies any voluntary muscle be severed, the muscle at once becomes flabby. The tonus does not depend entirely on the nerves which stim- ulate the muscle. In order to be stimulated, the muscle must be in the appropriate chemical con- dition to receive the stimulus, and this chemical condition is dependent not only on the general metabolic conditions of nutrition, fatigue and rest, but also on the specific actions of hormones pro- duced by several of the internally secreting glands, notably the adrenalin produced by the adrenal glands. In case of injury or disease affecting certain parts of the nervous system, certain muscles be- come flabby. In case of general flabbiness, it is of course not evident immediately whether the primary defect is in the nervous system, or in the metabolism of the body. In any case, flabbi- 44 Personal Beauty ness, local or general, is a symptom of inefficiency in bodily functioning, and although under mod- ern conditions the flabby individual may be able to make his living at his particular restricted oc- cupation, flabbiness unfits him for parenthood now, just as much as it did in the stone age. We can't breed husky children from flabby parents. The flabbiness which is due not to a specific in- jury or disease, but to insufficient vitality, is first shown by the muscles of the face. That is to say, it is first shown to the casual observer; a medical examination would probably find it in other mus- cles first. It is not entirely due to the concealing of the body that the facial muscles have become known as the muscles of expression. Failures of tonicity in these muscles are conspicuous ; the sag- ging eyelids or corners of the mouth, or cheek muscles and other modifications which are readily observed but described with difficulty, are com- mon traits which are fatal to beauty. In fact I do not hesitate to say that, assuming the confor- mation of the features, and the complexion, to be not actually objectionable (that is, assuming the bare negative conditions), beauty, in so far as it is facial, depends on the proper tonicity of the muscles. The activity of the facial muscles expresses the mental and still more the emotional activity of the individual in a plain way. Vivacity and dullness. Racial Betterment 45 cheerfulness and gloom, benevolence and rancor, interest and ennui, and a multitude of other con- ditions are written in the facial movements for the runner to read. Boldness, modesty, candor, deceit, innocence, guilt, and other moral qualities may be expressed in the contractions of the mus- cles surrounding the eyes. But in repose, these muscles are expressive in another, and perhaps more important way, for they show the poten- tialities of the individual; what he is capable of, in so far as the capability depends on the func- tioning of the nervous system and the endocrine glands. A person may be attractive, while the face is in action, because the action indicates a desirable type of mental or moral activit}^ going on; but she is not to be judged beautiful in face, unless the face in repose expresses desirable po- tentialities. A common form of expression is * * she is beautiful only when she smiles : " a better state- ment would be ' ' she is attractive when she smiles, but she is not beautiful." 8. Poise. The consideration of the expression of mental and emotional qualifications leads us over into the general problem of the participation of mental traits in personal beauty. There is no doubt of the value, to the race as well as to the individual, of a high degree of mental develop- ment, provided always that the development does not so destroy the physical balance that the in- 46 Personal Beauty dividual 's chance of survival is impaired. Devel- opment in some individuals, by special environ- ment and training, of mental capacity beyond the point of balance, is doubtless of value to the so- cial group of which they are members, but the increase in stock which tends to general over- mentalization is a dangerous factor. The underdevelopment of mental capacity, even at levels far above feeble-mindedness and other obvious mental defects, is a form of inefficiency as positive as the overdevelopment. We can con- ceive of a world peopled by a race of men and women of splendid physique, from which the com- mon grades of undesirables have been eliminated : a world in which each individual seems admirably constituted for mating and creating children af- ter his kind. Great content and happiness, and joy in the appreciation of the beauty of their mates, might obtain among this people. Nature too would smile on the race which had so far com- plied with her conditions. But if this race could attain no further than eminence in the traits we have previously considered, it would be a failure. As a matter of fact, a nation on this plan would have a low chance of survival in conflict and com- petition with nations which had gone beyond it into a richer mental and spiritual flower and fruition. If it were possible to apply comprehensive and Racial Betterment 47 accurate mental tests to candidates for mating, and so to select in accordance with adequate men- tal standards, racial betterment might be attained along this line : but we have no criteria which are capable of such application, and cannot foresee the time when they may be available. The im- portant question, therefore, is whether there is an element in beauty itself which serves as an index of mental and spiritual potentiality: or whether our selection is indeed blind in this respect. The mental life of the individual: the processes which directly involve consciousness: depend, as we now know, on the integration of the nervous system, and not on the specific activity of certain cell-groups in the brain. The nervous system is made up of myriads of nerve cells — neurons — , each one a distinct individual. These neurons form chains of conununication from every sense organ to every muscle and gland. Many of these lines of communication may, at certain moments, operate in relative independence of one another. The lines which control the merely ''physio- logical" processes usually possess a relative in- dependence. Conscious reactions, on the other hand, are reactions of a large part, if not of the whole of, the organism: reactions in which the ''nervous discharge" over a vast network of routes, is integrated, or welded, for the moment into a single function of the complex system. 48 Personal Beauty This integration is probably never perfect, but reaches a high degree in the most efficient func- tioning. When the integration falls below a some- what indefinite low level the failure gives rise to the sjTuptoms of ** functional " nervous disease. The individual who is capable of a high level of integration under specific conditions and train- ing, is not necessarily able to maintain an effi- cient level under the various conditions which must be faced in daily life. The distinguished mathematician, or lawyer, or ''specialist" of any sort, may show, along with his particular effi- ciency, some of the symptoms of mental disease, or be inefficient in many circumstances not in- volved in the immediate practice of his specialty. These individuals, therefore, do not represent the stock from which the race should be bred.* More desirable, is a more generally integrated stock, to be improved in its general integrative ability as much as possible, and from which in- dividuals of specific integrative type — specialists in the several lines of mental effort — may be de- veloped as offshoots. Sound integrative function: the foundation of sound mental life: is practically recognizable, and is an actual element in human beauty as it is estimated in civilized societies. We call the 'These conditions are practically satisfied by the failure of geniuses to produce offspring. Our Shakespeares, Newtons, and Washingtons have left few descendants. Racial Betterment 49 evidence of this capacity poise, and read it in the individual's activities all the way from such com- monplace processes as walking and talking, to the most complicated reactions under social condi- tions. Proper muscular tonicity is of course a necessary condition for poise, although it is but part of the total. In all its details, however, poise takes us over from mere anatomy to action. Without poise, beauty is the beauty of the mar- ble statue and the painted canvas. In the com- petition for mates, poise undoubtedly plays a very large and entirely worthy role. Singularly enough, in one of the institutions in which poise should always be considered essential : in the stage beauty-show: poise has in some recent instances been very much neglected, with results which strikingly demonstrate the importance of this at- tribute. I shall refer to this further on. Although our survey is far from complete, it has proceeded far enough to show us clearly in what beauty consists. It is the sign and the ex- pression of the potentiality of the individual; not what he has done or is doing, but what he is capa- ble of doing; not what he is capable of doing for his own interests, but what he is capable of doing for the species. Put in the plainest of terms, the most beautiful woman, the handsomest man, are the persons we would choose to be coparents of 50 Personal Beauty our children, if we considered nothing but the highest mental and physical welfare of these chil- dren. The reasons for the actual matrimonial choices of society are complex, beauty being only a minor consideration. For the student of social psychol- ogy the investigation of the other factors is of absorbing interest, but here I may say merely that the predominance of these factors is a calamity. As a physiological psychologist, I must repeat what the poets have sung: the glorification of beauty and its exaltation as the primary ideal, which ought to reign in human life. Of all the divinities in the Greek pantheon, the most glo- rious are not Zeus and Hera, not Ares and his Aphrodite Pandemus, but Apollo and Aphrodite Urania, the life-giving queen of heaven. It will be noticed that I have omitted moral qualities from the composition of the beautiful individual and have ignored the physical charac- ters which connote these qualities. In this I have been consistent, and am in perfect agreement with common usage. Beauty may be proud, cruel, de- ceitful, immoral, wicked; and yet it may still be beauty. Cleopatra was capable of almost any crime you can think of, and Thais was no modest \dolet; but history tells us that they were of won- derful beaut}''. '' Handsome is as handsome does" is true only in a qualified way. Racial Betterment 51 How, then, can we elevate beauty to the rank we give it, since it satisfies our social demands only in part, and in what many consider the less essential part? We must do so, because it is the foundation on which truth and holiness are built. Only the race which is physically and mentally fit can survive and flourish long enough to de- velop and put in practice moral ideals. The prob- lem after all is not one of choice between two ideals, but of having such regard for the primary ideal that it may help us to the attainment of ultimate ideals. In a more specific and limited way the problem of right and might exemplifies the guiding principle, which is therein not a choice hettveen right and might, but the bringing of might into the service of right. So much for the salient characters of beauty in the meager treatment I can give them here. I might now mention two other points which pos- sibly will set off more clearly the conception I am trying to express. Although beauty, in the primary and funda- mental sense of the term, is prospective, we some- times use the word retrospectively, as when we speak of a beautiful old lady or a handsome old man, indicating thereby a person who evidences the past possession of characters valuable to the race. In a certain sense, the retrospective charac- ters of beauty are the same as those which con- 52 Personal Beauty stitute beauty proper; but nevertheless there is a tendency to admit, or rather demand, especially of women, moral characters not demanded in the case of primary beauty. While the handsome old man is, rather strictly, the man who still retains in some degree the marks of positive beauty (the marks having a retrospective significance), the beautiful old woman is she who, retaining the retrospective characters, also gives evidence of graces and temperamental qualities which are pos- sibly more the result of environment than of con- stitution, and which in the younger woman are set off from beauty as '^sweetness." This admission of retrospective personal values is one feature of the consideration which civiliza- tion has given to the aged, i. e., to the individual no longer potential for the race. This considera- tion, perhaps, has not increased since patriarchal times, but it is an advance over the attitude of still more primitive races amongst whom the individ- ual who is no longer useful as a warrior or a parent is ignored or eliminated. Finally, I must refer to the popular distinction between prettiness and beauty ; a distinction which at least as it applies to women rests on solid psy- chobiological grounds, and which offers abundant opportunity for psychological research, having practical application to some of the pressing social problems. Racial Betterment 53 The pretty woman is she who possesses certain of the characters of beauty, but in such combina- tion tliat they are not an indication of the general potentiality requisite for beauty. The characters of prettiness are the characters of beauty which promise least for the stamina of the race. With- out extensive analysis of these signs the distinc- tion may be summed up by saying that a pretty woman might be the man's choice for a mate, but not, other considerations being subordinated, for the mother of his children. There is doubtless a valid distinction in types of men, corresponding to the distinction between *' beautiful" and ''pretty" women, but it is prac- tically unimportant because of the singleness of woman's judgment. Men, however, are as a sex strongly interested in pretty women as well as in beautiful ones. On this point, certain observations on theatrical performances, especially musical comedies, are il- luminating. Details are too lengthy to introduce here; but in brief, the types represented by th show girl and the dancers are necessary to give the chorus (the foundation of the show) the widest appeal to the males. This is a fact of practical im- portance to producers, and I have found no diffi- culty in obtaining abundant introspective confir- mation from men of all classes. Some men are interested almost exclusively in the type of show 54 Personal Beauty girls Avho evidently would be splendid mothers; others are primarily interested in the types who are attractive in a more immediately sexnal way. The great majority of men, however, are strongly interested in both types, and have little difficulty in identifying the grounds of the two interests. The stage, I may remark, is to social psychology what the laboratory is to individual psychology, furnishing the possibility of experimental tests, especially in the domain of the problems of the family, to which the tojDic of this paper properly pertains. I have sketched, in the preceding discussion, the line of observation and reasoning which supports my opening statement that beauty is something vitally important for the human race. It is un- necessary that I should fill in this outline with more detail, because, having once become im- pressed with the scheme, whether favorably or adversely, the details will be filled in from your daily experience, and will in the end leave no doubts as to the truth of the matter. It is there- fore the business of the social psychologist to lead the way from this point to the next, and practical one, the conservation of beauty. PART II THE CONSERVATION OF BEAUTY HTiman beauty, we have pointed out, is a sign of fitness for parenthood: fitness to propagate children who shall be, in high degree, able to hold their own in the mental and physical struggle with nature and Avitli their human competitors. It is the sign which is intuitively recognized by the race and upon which the process of sexual selec- tion is based. It therefore is nothing superficial: it is the external appearance of the germinal po- tentiality which is the most important of all things for society. When we say that this sign is intuitively recog- nized, we do not mean that it has any mystic prop- erties : we mean that it is a sign which is accepted and acted upon, without induction or inference, or reasoned process : recognized in the visual details of form and coloration and graceful movement, in the audible details of voice, and the tactually felt smoothness of skin and firmness of muscle and glossiness of hair. Concerning the processes of development through which this recognition may have passed, and the conjectural mechanism through which it has come about, we need not 55 56 Personal Beauty speculate. That it is a fact, is the point upon which our emphasis should be placed. In the absence of more scientific tests of the ra- cial potentiality of the individual, beauty must be used as our guide — beauty as we have described it in the preceding chapter. And, since the better- ment of the race should be evidenced by an in- crease in that which is the sign of desirable quali- ties, the problem of racial betterment is the prob- lem of conserving beauty, and eliminating ugli- ness, that beauty may more and more predomi- nate; and the race become more and more fit, in- stead of declining under the influence of those factors in civilization which inhibit sexual selec- tion and natural selection. At the present time, we have no right to assume that any strain of the human race can be im- proved. Transmission of acquired characters may be possible, but the burden of proof is upon those who maintain that hypothesis. Neverthe- less, we know that improvement in mixed stocks can be secured by the selection of the more fit, and the elimination of the less fit. In stock-breed- ing, we propagate from those individuals which show in highest obtainable degree the qualities we desire, and by so doing we improve the breed. We have reason to believe therefore that in the much mixed human races, by increasing the breed- ing of the more beautiful individuals, and decreas- Racial Betterment 57 ing the breeding of the less fit, the level of the race may be raised, since the better strains will thus gain a greater and greater predominance over the weaker. Even if it be possible to grad- ually improve the poorer strains themselves (which we have said above is not probable), the sure and far more rapid method of improvement is the elimination of these weaker strains, and the multiplication of the better. In two ways the progress of civilization has ob- structed the propagation of the fittest, and facili- tated tlie multiplication of the unfit. The first way is by the development of humanitarianism, and the development also of efficacious tools for its use: surgery, pharmacology, and prophylaxis, with large funds and personnel to apply them. By the active influence of humanitarianism, the less resistant, less virile, have been given a greater ra- tio of survival, and with the increase in survival has gone an increase in propagation. I am not unappreciative of the benefits of hu- manitarianism; it is the real glory of civilization, and we would be Huns if we did not realize it. It is true that many of the individuals whom science and philanthropy snatch from untimely ends, al- though individually weaklings, are weaklings by economic accident and germ infection, but really belong to desirable stocks and are capable of propagating desirable progeny. Moreover, the es- 58 Personal Beauty sence of civilization is the fact that it places a value on the individual where nature places value only on the species. The true type of natural val- uation is illustrated by the bees, the male of which dies in the act of copulation, the female is dis- carded as soon as she ceases to produce eggs co- piously, and the neuters are mere machines to care for the eggs and feed the queen and larvse. That this sort of social organization is not good for man, however well it suits the bees, the Germans have impressively demonstrated. Although civil- ization evaluates individuals as such, regardless of the sort of offspring they produce, it dares not nullify the laws of nature beyond a certain limit, or it would commit suicide. The obvious compro- mise is to preserve the individual, whether virile or weakling, but to prevent the weakling from re- producing. Thus both humanitarianism and ra- cial needs are served. Perhaps there are limits beyond which the pres- ervation of the individual is undesirable. It seems not only useless but dangerous to preserve the in- curably insane and the lower grades of feeble- minded, even when we consider the case from the individualistic point of view. When we estimate what the personal labor put into asylums and into institutions for feeble-minded, might accomplish if expended in the poorer districts of our cities in teaching the children who will be the parents Racial Betterment 59 of a large fraction of the next generation of citi- zens, how to work and play, it seems a pity that we cannot asphyxiate the hopelessly insane and feeble-minded as kindly as we do stray dogs and cats. Such a course of procedure, however, is im- practicable, for the reasons assigned below against legalized sterilization. The second way in Avhich civilization interferes with the conservation of the desirable human qualities, is in setting sexual values which con- flict with those of beauty, and which obscure or override them. The natural desire for children is inhibited by other desires of various sorts: desires which in many cases are good in themselves, but which are so puffed up by civilization that many couples who are personally qualified, legally authorized, and economically able, to create children, produce none or too few. On account of these social values which civilization creates, many who are excel- lently qualified for parenthood do not even marry. On the other hand, the social values which are purchasable by wealth and which again, are in many cases commendable, often obscure perscTual undesirability; and men and women who, in a more natural order of things would not be counted beautiful, nor considered desirable coparents, are sought after and married. Fortunately, it fre- quently happens that the inhibitory process we 60 Personal Beauty have just mentioned; the checking of the desire for children by conflicting social values; enters into a great many of these mammonistic marriages and tends to neutralize their evil results. The harm of mismating is not completely destroyed by childlessness, however, for although the positive damage — the procreation by the unfit parent — may thus be prevented, the loss due to the nonpro- creation by the fit mate in such a union is not made up. Features of civilization which are in themselves good may, as indicated above, work serious harm in society which has not yet completely adjusted itself to these features. Certain benefits, on the other hand may accrue to society from features which are in themselves malignant, even though the evil wrought by these features is enormously in excess of the incidental benefits. Prostitution is one of these sinister features, which, it is proba- ble, has conferred slight benefits on society, and has also contributed to social modifications wiiose value is open to serious question. Prostitution is a social institution developed with civilization as a result of social maladjust- ment: maladjustment of the various other institu- tions which develop by irregular growth. Al- though no longer accepted as a necessity, it re- sists all attempts to eliminate it based on the as- sumption that it is a primary institution, instead Racial Betterment 61 of what it really is: namely, a derivative. Like all symptoms, it is to be treated as a symptom, and removed by removing the causes. Neither homeopathic nor allopathic measures have had permanent remedial effect upon it. Yet, like all symptomatic phenomena, it has direct conse- quences, flowing from it rather than from its causes, and these consequences are probably both good and evil. Prostitution has undoubtedly had some effect, and possibly a large effect, in checking the in- crease, if not in producing the decrease, of cer- tain individual qualities which are deemed un- desirable, either from the personal or the social point of view. In its commonest form, prostitution is a means of limiting the sexual freedom of women, while extending the largest freedom to men compatible with such restriction upon the female. It pro- vides, in other words, the greatest possible sexual liberty for male and the greatest possible limita- tion for women, which can coexist. A major dis- tinction is thus created between the two classes of harlots and ' ' virtuous women, ' ' into which two classes all women are distributed if the system is perfectly carried out. As a matter of fact, in most social groups under the successive stages of civili- zation, there has been a ''borderline" class, never 62 Personal Beauty large, but rapidly increasing in size at the present time. The typical rule of prostitution, although ab- sent from some civilizations, is that the woman who ''sins" once, if found out, becomes per- manently a prostitute. Exceptions are made, in later forms of civilization, in favor of women be- longing to certain small classes, but these excep- tions are not of sufficient importance to alter the general conditions. Prostitutes are in general childless, except for the single ''love child" which is in many cases the instrument through which the woman's "sin" is discovered, and through which, therefore, she is committed to harlotry. In total, the progeny of harlots are of small conse- quence. Prostitution furnishes therefore a sink, into which certain lines of human descent are con- stantly vanishing. The types of woman absorbed in this sink include two of probable importance as regards their effect on the stock. These are, first: the feeble-minded, who, according to cur- rent statistics, are found in significant frequency among harlots and "delinquent" women;* and second, those women who are more like the male in the temporal course of sexual desire than is the *Caution in evaluating these statistics is necessary. They are of course drawn from the relatively small class of "delinquents" who are caught; and of course the woman of lower intelligence is more apt to be caught than is the more intelligent "delinquent." To a lesser degree, the same consideration applies to the statistics on relative frequency of nymphomania. Racial Betterment 63 average woman, and are hence more apt to ac- tively seek intercourse, or more apt to yield to the illicit solicitations of the male. The occurrence among prostitutes of a certain proportion of nymphomaniacs is not surprising. The age-long drafting into the ranks of harlots of the more ardent women should theoretically give a slight advantage in reproduction to the ''colder" types, and could thus have produced a modification in the average constitution of woman; which seems indeed to have occurred. "While among savages, according to many ac- counts, women are more lustful, if anything, than men; among modern civilized peoples the rule is that aside from coquetry, woman yields rather than seeks. Her sexual desires are a flame which must be lighted from an external source, whereas the male's are self -igniting. Man's desire is al- ways explicit, but woman's are usually implicit, becoming explicit only under the favorable stimu- lating influence — ^mental and physical — of the male. The manifestation of the implicit desire in extreme cases is coquetry, which is only an ex- aggeration of the normal tendency to encourage the male, that is, to submit herself to the stimu- lation, mental at first, which will eventually arouse her explicit desire. The beautiful reciprocity of the sexes herein exhibited must command our ad- 64 Personal Beauty miration by its efficiency in promoting Dame Na- ture's aims. Prostitution has no such selective effect on the males as it has on the females. It may have a slight effect in delaying, or in exceptional cases obviating, marriage. But whereas prostitutes never constitute more than a small percentage of the female population, their patrons constitute an important percentage of the male population: es- timates (admittedly unreliable) running as high as ninety per cent in America, and higher in Eu- rope. Nor can it be said there is any less ultimate fecundicity among the more frequent male forni- cators than among the less frequent, or among the minority who take monogamy seriously. Other vices, however, homosexuality in particular, do lessen reproduction by males of weak strains,* although having no probable effect on female re- production. The presumptive effect of prostitution on the average emotional constitution of woman can as reasonably be assumed to be a loss as a gain. If we could free ourselves from the still prevalent view of woman as property; if marriage could *Against the Freudian supposition that homosexuality is a normal in- cident of the development of the individual, I wish to set the conjecture, at least as plausible, that it is the mark of an hereditary taint, where it is not produced by extremely pathological social conditions, and that even in these latter cases, it develops under the guidance of an influential tainted stock. Although homosexuality is frequent among women, that it acts as a preventive of marriage and child bearing in more than an inconsiderable number of cases does not seem probable. Racial Betterment 65 be put on a plan of equality ; there would undoubt- edly be a consensus of opinion that society loses by a repression of the emotional life of females. Hence, the only benefit we can assume from pros- titution is the reduction of reproduction by the feeble-minded. And this, in contrast with the serious racial effects of venereal disease which prostitution facilitates: with the even more se- rious evil of unmated women which prostitution augments: and with the psychological effects on the men who resort to prostitutes — effects which have not been given due consideration as yet — is a contribution so small that it is not worth con- sideration. Pkactical Steps in Conservation Any consideration of the propagation of the most beautiful types involves a consideration of the standard of beauty; and as I have pointed out, there is a diversity in this respect, not only na- tionally, but to a lesser degree even within a sin- gle civilized nation. This diversity, however, is not a serious impediment, since any practical steps which might be taken would be based, not upon a narrow type-classification, but rather on a broad grouping of types including all divergen- cies which do not involve disregard of the fun- damental principles of fitness. In effect, we are considering, at the most, not 66 Personal Beauty the extreme selection as carried out in stock- breeding, where a definite, narrowly defined char- acter (such as speed, milk secretion, or color) is desired, even at the expense of other characters ; but the elimination of the obviously unfit, and the promotion of the breeding of a wide range of more fit types. In so far as positive selection, as contrasted with elimination, is concerned, this can safely be accomplished by facilitating and fructi- fying the natural process of sexual selection rather than by arbitrary regulation. In considering elimination, two questions are equally important: first, what classes of individ- uals should theoretically be eliminated? and second, what machinery of elimination is possi- ble, and how far is it safe to allow this machinery to operate? If we do not allow the second question to dis- turb us, the first question may readily receive a partial answer. Feeble-mindedness, hereditary insanity, and hereditary criminal tendencies (if such occur) should be nipped in all the buds they show. Individuals showing these traits definitely should not be allowed to reproduce. Diseases and organic weaknesses which are transmissible to off- spring (if there be such diseases) should come un- der the same rigid ban. Although additions would need to be made to this list, the program indicated Racial Betterment 67 so far is so large that these additions might well be left to the indefinite future. The actual adoption of measures for the elim- ination of the obviously unfit from participation in reproduction, offers at the present time diffi- culties which seem insuperable. Sterilization is the abstractly logical course to pursue, since it in- terferes with no function of the individual except the creation of children. But in addition to the psychological difficulties involved in social prej- udices against this operation, there is a very real danger to be foreseen which can not be lightly set aside. If we could assume that the requisite machinery for the selection of those who should be sterilized would operate with perfect intelli- gence and without ethical lapses, we might view its introduction with equanimity. But such large chances are offered for ignorance and cupidity to work injustice that the scheme cannot possibly be accepted at the present time, whatever may be the conditions in some distant future.* If sterilization were legally instituted at the present time, its practical administration would in all probability be placed in the hands of the med- dieal profession as such (and the ''as such" is here a very important consideration). The medi- cal profession, in the United States at least, is a *Legal provision for sterilization has been made in several states in the Union. Apparently, the provision has not been follovifed in practice to any considerable extent. G8 Personal Beauty very strongly organized guild, having the essen- tial characteristics of the labor unions. It in- cludes a large number of the most intelligent, scientific and morally estimable men in the na- tion; but its rank and file are properly ranked as skillful technicians and not above the middle-class average in intelligence and morality. The com- mission to such an organization of such sweeping control as is contemplated by the proponents of sterilization would be a political revolution of a most portentous nature. The assigning of com- plex problems involving medical and other factors, to the control of the medical profession as such, does, and under conditions such as the present, will, not only endanger the solution of these very problems, but also introduce dangerous political situations. A similar statement could equally well be made of any other organized trade or pro- fession. If the time ever comes when the control of sterilization could be committed to a nonpro- fessional body, employing the services of men of whatever professional skill may be needed, the possibility of systematic legal sterilization may become a live one. At present, it must be emphat- ically rejected. Progress is possible towards the elimination of the unfit through the means which have most con- tributed to all progress, namely, education and publicity. The elimination under consideration is Racial Betterment _ 69 an ideal, which must be kept constantly in view, in order that all social changes, legislative and otherwise, may receive consideration, as regards their influence, direct or indirect, upon the facili- tation of progress towards it. Aside from the elimination of individuals of undesirable heredity, there are measures of a quasi-eliminatory character which may be taken to guard against deterioration of stocks. In ad- dition to rational hygienic measures against the spread of diseases in general, special precautions are needed against venereal diseases, since these most seriously threaten the virility of the race. With these diseases, sterilization would not be a sufficient protection, inasmuch as that operation does not preclude their transmission to nonsteri- lized individuals. It is imperative that there be absolute prevention of intercourse between in- fected and noninfected persons; and this preven- tion is a task of gigantic proportions. Its accom- plishment would probably necessitate the impris- onment (or the equivalent) of every individual case of gonorrhea and syphilis. If recent conclu- sions that leprosy is also a venereal disease, trans- missible during a long period before it becomes recognizable, are correct, the handling of this dis- ease, in countries where it flourishes, presents especial difficulties, since the attempt to stamp it out would involve the enforcement of more drastic 70 Personal Beauty prohibitions against promiscuity than have ever been attempted. In these cases again, education and publicity- seem to be the chief available weapons at present. Minor legislation, such as severe punishment of individuals who can be shown to have infected others, and of S3^philitic individuals who become parents, are worthy of consideration, but economic and general social influences bearing on the situa- tion should not be neglected. If, by concerted efforts of the governments of the world, venereal diseases could be finally stamped out, no events in the Christian era would be worthy to rank with this accomplishment ex- cept the defeat of the Mohammedans by Charles Martel and the defeat of the followers of the "good old German god" by Foch. Incest and Inbkeeding In all stages of society there have been devel- oped restrictions on mating which are conveni- ently described as incest-prohibitions. The wide variations in the tabus or conventions of this sort have given rise to much discussion among anthro- pologists and sociologists, but the universal prin- ciple on which these tabus are based is now quite clear. Whether the prohibition is against the mat- ing of blood-relations of certain degrees, or against mating of persons socially related through com- Racial Betterment 71 mon name, or totem, or tribal subdivision, it is al- ways of such a nature as to prevent the conjuga- tion of persons who are reared in close association or intimacy; causing the individual to look for a sex-mate beyond the limits of his immediate ' * fam- ily." In many cases, the prohibition is retained long after the ''family" life is so changed that the original reason has ceased to exist; as for ex- ample, is the case with the prohibition of the mar- riage of first cousins, who in many communities are no longer apt to be reared in greater intimacy than are children not blood-related at all. This persistence of conventions no longer useful is so common in society generally as to raise no special difficulties in understanding the incest prohibi- tions. In origin, these prohibitions are, without exception, conventions against the sex-mating of what may be designated as "house-mates." The importance of incest-conventions needs no argumentative support. The sex-impulse, in spite of its strength, is easily directed by conventions: the assumption that such and such persons are not possible sex-mates, if inculcated early enough, is a very efficient preventive of sex-interest in those persons. Without such conventions, the probabil- itj^ of the too early maturation and excessive de- velopment of the sex-instinct is very great. In- cest-prohibitions must therefore be religiously, if 72 Personal Beauty not blindly, preserved, if the future of the race is to be guarded. Inbreeding, which is frequently confused with incest, is a radically different matter, although in particular cases the two conditions may over- lap. The union of cousins is inbreeding, and may be incest, but the reasons for prohibiting it as incest have nothing to do with the bio- logical results of the inbreeding. The pop- ular notion that the incest-convention has grown up as a result of observation of the evil effects of inbreeding, or through an '* unconscious" knowl- edge of such evil effects is entirely fallacious. The justification, moreover, of an outworn incest-con- vention of this sort, through an appeal to the sup- posed evil effects of inbreeding, is without proper foundation. It is now well known that inbreeding has in it- self no evil effects. Stocks do not deteriorate through consanguineous marriages, but strong points as well as points of weakness are accen- tuated. Feeble-mindedness furnishes a good illus- tration of the results of breeding. Some of the progeny of the union of a sound and a feeble- minded parent, will be sound: but they carry in their germ-cells the ''determinant" of feeble- mindedness, and transmit it to a certain propor- tion of their o\^^l progeny. If two persons, both of whom carry this determinant, mate, the charac- Racial Betterment 73 teristic will reappear in certain of their progeny (that is, some of their children will be feeble- minded) although the characteristic may have been latent for several generations. Obviously, parents who both come from feeble-minded stock are more apt to possess this determinant than par- ents of diverse stock: hence we see the feeble- mindedness reappearing strikingly in certain cases of consanguineous marriages. The situation w^ith regard to other weaknesses is similar. Marriage of cousins produces a significant number of dea;f, or color-blind, or otherwise defective children be- cause these defects were latent in the stock and are brought otit by being transmitted through both parents. If the parents in such a case had each married persons not carrying the ''determinant" of the defect in question, the defect might not have appeared, but (and this is the consideration which must not be forgotten), the determinant would have been transmitted to a certain propor- tion of their progeny, to reappear or produce the defect, in later generations when the conditions were favorable. With regard to points of strength, the situation is the same as with points of weakness. High intelligence and longevity are actualized in the progeny of parents who both possess the deter- minant, whereas the determinant is in a large pro- 74 Personal Beauty portion of cases merely carried over to later gen- erations if only one parent possesses it. Instead of inbreeding being a racial evil, it may be a distinctly valuable means of progress. Strong strains are thereby conserved, and weak- nesses in other strains are brought to the surface, so that they may be recognized and eliminated. This consideration applies not only to inbreeding, but the general mating of like with like, for the re- sults of conjugation are the same when two per- sons who mate both possess the same determinant, whether these persons are closely or remotely re- lated in blood. If feeble-minded mate with feeble- minded; if those who carry the determinant but do not show it, mate only mth those who also carry the determinant, a large proportion of fee- ble-minded children will result from these unions. These children may then be institutionalized (if not sterilized) and prevented from reproducing, and their heredity thus eliminated. If, on the other hand, those of feeble-minded heredity mate largely with those of better heredity, the deter- minant is passed on, to make trouble in a larger degree in future generations, when like mates by chance with like. For the welfare of the race therefore, like should be encouraged to mate with like, especially in so far as weaknesses are concerned, and in- breeding, in so far as there is no encouragement of Racial Betterment 75 incest, should have the ban against it removed. However unwise the removal, in England, of the prohibition against marrying a deceased wife's sister, may have been — because she is so frequent- ly the husband's housemate — there is little rea- son, in America, in discouraging the marriage of first cousins. In the cases of aunt and nephew, and of uncle and niece, the incest-relation is pos- sibly a distinct consideration. Improvement in Sexual Selection In passing to the consideration of improvement by positive selection of the best stocks we are harking back nearly twenty-three hundred years, from preventive medicine to eugenics. Plato, in the Republic, outlines the first recorded plan for breeding a nation through careful selection of the most beautiful youths for parents, and punish- ment of unauthorized parents. Plato's scheme probably would not work, on account of its ex- treme paternalism, and its depersonalization as regards the indispensable feature of sexual union, namely, the offspring. It tends to reduce the in- dividual's interest in cohabitation to the purely sexual level. The universal failure of institu- tional care of babies is a sound warning against allowing the sexual instinct to gain the ascend- ancy over the parental. Plato was not fundamentally wrong in his the- 76 Personal Beauty ory of eugenics, any more than he was in other matters. The needs, after elimination of the clearly unfit, are two. First, to insure that mar- riages shall be made on the basis of mutual at- traction of beauty alone, excluding all interference of national, family, social, religious, or economic motives. Second, to take care that the unions of the most fit shall be fruitful, and relatively more fruitful than those of the less fit. The world at the present time is overpopulated. Man has obeyed the injunction to '^ multiply and replenish the earth, ' ' and having succeeded in re- plenishing the globe in full and over full measure, has gone right on multiplying. Even wars and pestilences have not prevented the earth's popu- lation from becoming too numerous. And al- though pestilences may be mostly short-circuited by medical skill, war is inevitable when national domains are so overcrowded that further increase is possible only through depredation on, or con- quest of, other peoples. If it had not been for the unnecessary multiplication of the German people, Germany would have had no occasion to attempt to conquer her neighbors, and would have had no occasion therefore to develop the philosophy of schrecJdichkeit to make her barbarities possible. The margin of living at the present time is very small. Land everywhere is becoming impover- ished, and available new lands are becoming less. Racial Betterment 77 Even now, grazing lands are rapidly disappear- ing, with consequent shortage of beef and leather. Soon there will not be an extent of wheat lands sufficient to feed the world, and the inferior sub- stitutes lately endured as a duty will be accepted as a necessity. When the whole world resorts to intensive farming, with no accessory regions of extensive cultivation, and no great wild areas for game and adventure, life for the majority of the people in our country and all others will take on the dull tinge it has in European peasant commu- nities. To make life profitable, we need vast forest areas, and vast areas which can lie fallow to re- cuperate. We need space for myriads of cattle and sheep, and for wild game. And we need to reduce our consumption of coal and oil and wood, rather than increase it. The obvious relief measure is the decrease in births among the classes now unduly multiplying. And all that is needed to bring this about is a dissemination of knowledge concerning hygienic means of preventing conception. The classes from which our best parents are drawn already possess some of this information and are already limit- ing — too much limiting, probably, — their off- spring. The immediate and urgent need is to in- struct the other classes, so that the disparity in 78 Personal Beauty propagation shall immediately be lessened, if not reversed.* The converse reforms; the increasing of the re- production of the best specimens of the race; de- pends more largely than might be supposed upon the restriction of the propagation of the unfit. With a lessened pressure of population, economic and social situations change radically, and the very individuals who now deem families undesira- ble will find the possession and care of children to be the maximally desirable thing in life. Others, Avho cannot afford a family under the economic situation now prevailing, will be able to maintain one without unduly relaxing the stand- ard of living, when the pressure on means of sustenance becomes less. The first step in the betterment of selection; the spreading of knowledge of preventive meas- ures throughout the whole population; is the dif- ficult one. In addition to the combination of ig- norance and class-interest which this reform, like all others, has to combat, the opposition is so sus- ceptible of political manipulation that it is almost impregnably intrenched. It is probable that not even the lessons of the German war will have much •Instruction of the negroes alone, with perhaps some institutional as- sistance of a material kind, would help greatly in the solution of one of the most important of American social problems. There is no doubt that the negroes would welcome the ameliorative measure; certainly the negro women would. Among the poorer white people, the lessening of the present preva- lence of abortion would in itself be a valuable result. Racial Betterment 79 influence, and until the social and industrial crises now bearing down upon us have become actuali- ties instead of threats the public will not wake up. In addition to the general economic check to the reproduction of the so-called ''better classes," there are positive psychosociological checks which operate selectively against the more beautiful women — precisely the women who ought to be se- lected for reproduction, not against it. The more beautiful a woman, other considera- tions being equal, the greater her chance of mak- ing a relatively wealthy match — and her beauty may even overcome serious considerations of neg- ative weight. The wealthier the match, under present conditions, the less the probability of her bearing children. Without wealth, social preten- sions may have an even greater deterrent effect, for with wealth, social pretensions and children are not positively incompatible whereas without wealth they are. It is not worth while to gloss over facts, nor is it decent. Numbers of women of the most beau- tiful types are bought for a price, and that price is the assurance of being kept for life in a style and indolence which preclude (barring accidents) the satisfaction of the parental instinct. And even when tired of these mistresses, their consorts cannot discard them and take more normal women, for they (or their parents for them) have had the 80 Personal Beauty foresight to exact life contracts, legally enf orcible, and not to be broken even legally, without the curse of the churches. In many cases, the woman who surrenders her person in consideration of a life contract for her keep, performs no labor, not even caring for her own person; bears no children (unless inadvert- ently) ; and makes absolutely no return to society for the labor of many individuals expended upon her — except the personal return to her husband. Needless to say, ''wives" of this sort are distin- guished from mistresses, by the law merely.* They are more properly and accurately designated as hetairae. It would not be possible to do away with legal- ized hetairae altogether, without radical revision of our entire economic system — for the whole marriage problem, while not entirely a problem in economics, is so hedged about with economic con- ditions that its solution must be largely economic. The conjugal relation should not in any case have an economic consideration. Any form of compen- sation for sexual relations is as much prostitution as if a fixed price in coin were exacted; and the legal form of prostitution is especially dangerous *The conventional standards of female morality, it must be understood, are matters of necessity and law, not of personal ethics. The implacable resentment of reputable women against the "weak sister" is not a result of abstract moral sentiment, but is precisely the feeling of the union laborer against the "scab" who cuts prices. And this solidarity of the women's "union" against lowering of the market, from life contract to less, has been an important protection to the sex as a whole. Racial Betterment 81 to the future of the race. It must not be supposed that by ' ' sexual relations ' ' the mere physiological act of copulation is meant. Many parasite wives are loved, and many extra-legal mistresses kept, and cherished because of their charming person- alities and reciprocated affection; all this properly comes within the meaning of *' sexual relations." Not always does the husband of a parasite wife pay a price for her. Frequently she purchases him, and keeps him. But the outcome is the same in those cases, in which the **wife," already in- dependent, uses her position to exempt herself from any social return. The cure for the evil of nonreproduction of the fit and mated is not to be easily found. Perhaps it can be effected only by a fundamental revolution in the social attitude towards marriage. At pres- ent the marriage of the ''upper classes" is too much a matter of bargain and sale; among the "lower classes" too much a matter of slavery. The ideal marriage, in which there is a practical copartnership, involving the rearing of several children, and in which the husband and wife to- gether contribute to industry, or art, or science, whether the contribution is directly credited to both or to the husband alone, is unfortunately found principally among the "middle classes." Those strata of society which practice real mar- riage will grow and strengthen, while those which 82 Personal Beauty practice the more oriental form will wither and decay. Less numerous than the hetairae of the class we have been discussing, but relatively more impor- tant because selected from these women who pos- sess beauty in the highest degree, are public en- tertainers; actresses, singers, chorus girls, and dancers. A certain small percentage of the female entertainers are presented because of qualifica- tions other than beauty; for histrionic or terp- sichorean ability or for mere voice quality, but the majority are selected on the basis of sexual attractiveness exclusively or in large part. Even on the ''legitimate" stage, the demands made on the actress are not similar to those made on male players ; the most successful actresses are with few exceptions those who most copiously display their personal charms — not merely of physique, but of all the qualities, including the subtler mental and emotional qualities, which affect and attract the better type of male. It is true that we have our great exceptions: Bernhardt and others; but it must also be admitted that while they, like Shakespeare, are revered, the larger group who merely exploit their jDulchritude, are more popu- lar. In musical comedy, which is in many ways the most important division of the stage, the ac- tress without exceptional sexual attractiveness is soon eliminated. Racial Betterment 83 These professional entertainers are practically lost to posterity. While they are actively before the public they do not reproduce, and if they leave the stage or the cabaret for marriage, it is usu- ally marriage of the nonfertile kind. Apparently, thousands of these selected females enter the pro- fession every year; the very ones who, on Plato's plan would be picked out above all others for the perpetuation of the race being thus eliminated al- most completely.* The proportion of the female population which possesses distinctive beauty is never large in any community. If one will stand on a street which, like Fifth Avenue in New York, or Charles Street, in Baltimore, is a route of feminine parade, and count the number of women whom he or she would class as "really beautiful" the truth of this gen- eralization will be borne in on him. He will real- ize, in particular, that a majority vote of women would never favor a style of dress which should reveal the form any more than at present, and *Some of the readers of my manuscript have expressed astonishment at my description of chorus girls and dancers as the type of high devel- opment. This astonishment is due to failure to understand my real point. Individually, many of these women may be of undeveloped mentality and coarse fiber: these are largely accidents of education and environment. Nevertheless, these same women may be racially of very high grade, that is, they may represent stock capable of high moral and mental education, as well as of excellent physique. The racial qualities, transmissible to progeny, it must be remembered, are indeijendent of training. It must also be borne in mind, that I am speaking only of the type of enter- tainer which is really well selected, that is, which has the high as well as the lower qualifications. Many chorus girls, as I specifically point out, are not thoroughly beautiful, but are selected on an anatomical basis alone. These, of course, would not be picked "above all others." 84 Personal Beauty would probably favor a return of a considerable distance on the road from crinoline. The percent- age of women who would be even moderately presentable as barelegged dancers, regardless of dancing ability, is so low as to be shocking. From such considerations as these it is apparent that the removal from the racial streams of even the relatively small number of physically fit women absorbed by the entertaining profession, is a se- rious matter. One can readily imagine what would have happened in the development of trot- ting stock if there had been continual selection of the best specimens to be removed from breed- ing. Fortunately, selection for the stage and the cabaret is not so efficiently done as it might be ; the standards of beauty are to a certain extent deter- mined by persons who are not good judges of feminine beauty; and hence the maximal harm is not accomplished. This is true at least of the selection of the majority of the entertainers typi- fied by the chorus. Some of the choruses which are the most painstakingly selected are, on this account, less effective than others more casually chosen. Mere bodily proportion and skin texture has been emphasized at the expense of expression; the less important details of beauty have obscured the more essential. This, however, is because of the relative novelty of the complete exposure of Racial Betterment 85 the female body to the public gaze, and will pass off as such exhibition becomes more commonplace. At first glance, the damage done to the race by the selection of public entertainers from the fe- male sex, seems incurable. The public will have its entertainment, and there will be more extensive selection and more efficient selection, rather than less. It is not however certain that the present results are necessary, and possibly with better economic conditions, and higher social ideals, we may have our beautiful entertainers and their progeny too. If for example, a girl goes on the stage at eighteen and at twenty-five retires, mar- ries, and bears a number of children, no harm is done. If this were the normal life-history of danc- ers and chorus girls, their selection would tend to improve the racial stock, instead of causing de- terioration. Unfortunately, the usual story at present is far from the realization of this ideal. The profound changes now occurring in our in- dustrial and domestic conditions are rapidly in- creasing a sort of matrimonial antiselection which is relatively new in the world. With the entry of women in significant numbers into the arts, in- dustries, and professions, a new nonparental class is established. Many self-supporting women eventually marry, but many do not, and the per- manently celibate class will probably increase in relative numbers in the future. To a certain ex- 86 Personal Beauty tent, the independent class is recruited from those who are low in the scale of beauty, and hence are ''rejects" from the matrimonial market. If this were the case with all, the tendency of industrial feminism would be to improve the remaining stock; but conditions are not so simple. Many self-supporting women — how many it is impossi- ble to estimate — have opportunities to marry, but set their own standards of selection high, and are not content to accept the partners of the grade of- fered. As a result not only are they lost to pos- terity, but the declined males mate with females lower in the scale of fitness, and thus a double damage is done to the stock. No permanent good could conceivably result from checking the growth of industrial freedom of women. In the course of time — and not proba- bly a long time either — the disorganization of the entire family system resulting from this freedom will render imperative sweeping industrial and social changes which, if we maintain our ideals, can be such as will reestablish family life on a higher plane, and remove many of the injustices which civilization has long tolerated. That the economic freedom of women has effects even more fundamental than the production of a nonparental class, is evident to any one who dips beneath the surface of society. The ''double stand- ard" of morals, resulting partly from ancient Racial Bettermeyit 87 necessities of guaranteeing paternity, and partly from the universal consideration of women as property, is dissolving at a rate faster than casual observation reveals. So long as woman had but one means of providing for herself, namely: the sale of her person ; the double standard was easily maintained. The woman who once ' * sinned ' ' (and was found out) could no longer command a price as a wife, and was obliged to sell herself as a har- lot. The woman who now is employed, at a liv- ing wage, may do as she likes, provided she does not make her private life public; and is yet able to continue to support herself without falling into prostitution, since her employers pay her for her work, not for her ''morality." One who under- stands the psychological principles which control the sexual instinct might predict from these cir- cumstances the changes which are actually oc- curring. From these principles also, we can surely foretell that the revolution, having gained a little more headway, will spread far beyond the class in which it originated. The abolition of the ''double standard" may be set down, as a revolution which, though not ac- complished, is so far along that there is no pos- sibility of checking it, whether we would like to do so or not. The proximate effects will doubtless be appalling, and yet there is little reason to fear 88 Personal Beauty that ultimately it will not lead to a sexual moral- ity far higher than the present standard. If the growing freedom of women does not lead to the recognition of childbearing as a contribu- tion to the state — the state, in its permanency rep- resenting the interests of posterity — the future of- fers little chance of racial betterment. If this recognition is gained, and with it is established the principle that the woman who relinquishes gainful occupation to bear children is entitled to adequate recompense therefor, racial betterment may be greatly furthered. But such furtherance depends also upon the maintenance of the family life with all that it now implies and more, except the dependency of the wife on the husband; and if this family life be lost, the situation will un- doubtedly be worse than at present. The detailed problems must be met as they arise, but they will be met successfully only if we keep our ideals alive, and determine our legal, economic, and so- cial measures in conformity with them. Neither by ignoring conditions and directions of change, nor by applying ancient formulae to new facts, can we maintain social equilibrium and secure progress. New wine must be put in new bottles, and the bottles must be ready when the wine needs bottling. Racial Betterment 89 The Selection of Male Parents In the process of sexual selection in civilized lands, beauty has perhaps played a smaller role in determining the chosen males than it has in picking out the female parents. The physical and mental characteristics of the male which are vital for the future of the race have been more and more overshadowed by his ability to provide adequately or luxuriously for wife and immediate offspring. To an increasing extent also, the material re- sources possessed by men come to be results of social accident, rather than of personal quality and efficiency of the types which are racially and socially desirable. If this last thesis is not true, then our whole system of free education, except the merely vocational training, is based on a gi- gantic fallacy. Any man, however lacking in personal qualifi- cations may, if he has wealth, marry a woman of high parental fitness, mental as well as physical. He may not be able to obtain certain particular women of this high type, but he is sure of finding at least one who will accept him, if he desires such a one. This is true provided he has no glaring positive disqualifications; and even so, imperfec- tions which are racially malignant, are lesser ob- stacles than superficial ones; a syphilitic history or puny physique are less influential than the loss of a leg or an eye. 90 Personal Beauty In the various economic grades of society, in- cidental financial resources play their part in the selection of males. In the melodrama, the beauti- ful heroine in the end accepts the personally de- sirable, but poor, hero, to the discomfiture of the wealthy, but sexually undesirable, rival. In real life, what ought to occur does not occur so uni- formly. Youth, in which the preservative forces of nature are more abundant, has more intelligence in regard to all the details of mating and in re- gard to many details in the rearing of children; but the reprehensible philosophy of age sicklies the flame of youth with its pale cast, even where it does not resort to the forces of authority and economic control. War, with all its evils, has brought a freshen- ing of the sexual interests of women, and lent its support to the natural tendency to select for the race. In the military profession in time of war, the male personal qualities which preserve the stock come once more into the prominence they possessed in less civilized societies, and from which the machine-like organization of modern in- dustrialism has driven them. It may well be that these qualities have no fuller scope or power in modern armies than in modern civil life. This is immaterial. The fact is that the glamor of ancient methods of combat still hangs about the military service, and these personal qualities attain thereby Racial Betterment 91 a psychological interest of practical power.* As a matter of fact, the recruit tends to put on, with his uniform, a more primitive and sexually chal- lenging behavior than he assumes as a civilian in the restraining circumstances of western society. To the women of the nation, male personality be- came, during the war, of paramount importance, and the conflicting values went almost completely into the discard. Whether this effect will be car- ried over into the postbellum period remains to be seen. It is entirely improbable that a war of less than ten years' duration has any injurious effect upon the stocks of a nation. Conclusions that the ef- fects of short wars are damaging have entirely neglected the psychological factors, which are the most important of all. A war lasting throughout a generation w^ould have quite different effects, and is not to be made the basis of arguments con- cerning briefer conflicts. The incidental benefits which war confers upon a nation are not reasons *Since writing the above 1 have received the following interesting communication concerning the fascination of the uniform: "In a recent book I came across these sentences, which come nearer expressing my sentiments on the subject than anything I have ever read: — 'but now that we are at war, there has awakened in every woman the ancestral en- thusiasm that her remote grandmother used to feel for the strong and aggressive beast. — Before a uniform they feel the humble and servile enthusiasm of the female of the lower animals before the crests, foretops, and gay plumes of the fighting males.' " "P.ut there is another feeling" (my correspondent adds), "that men in uniform always awaken in women: — the desire to mother them. Why is that?" An almost universal expression of the maternal instinct towards the potential parent! But with some women, the dominant response to the uniform (and the conditions it symbolizes) may be best described as an increase in coquetry. 92 Personal Beauty for advocating war, but do indicate the things that it is desirable to procure in times of peace. Another effect of war — or what appears as an- other effect, although intimately connected with the effects just discussed, is the general unset- tling of sexual ' ' morality ' ' among the men in the mobilized forces, and the women who are brought into direct relation to these forces. The effect on the male seems to be produced by the greater sexual opportunities offered,* and the greater se- curity of the army life in strange surroundings. The effects of the war on certain elements of the female population in the United States were no less definite. The "lure of the uniform" was a real phenomenon. Undoubtedly this "lure" was much increased by its frequent and detailed dis- cussion in the press, repeatedly suggesting to im- pressionable young women the opportunities and excuses offered them. Possibly many girls were convinced that if they did not feel the much dis- cussed "lure" they were not normal. Neverthe- less, there was a real psychological fact at the foundation of this growth. It is probable that the emphasis on male per- sonality, and the stirring, by the general excite- ment of the war, of primitive tendencies and in- *The intense desire of officers and men for overseas duty, which grew after the first expeditions had gone over, was in a great many cases fanned by the current belief in the freedom of sexual life offered soldiers in France. Racial Betterment 93 stincts, played a part in this phenomenon of fas- cination. A larger part was played by the unset- tling of social conventions and restraints. That girls and young women whose lives had been most formal should suddenly be permitted to be free- for-all dancing partners for men of most miscel- laneous sorts, whose names even the girls often did not know, was possibly not important in it- self; but it is a significant index of the terrific up- heaval in social conventions which the war brought. The rapid and expected shifting of personnel un- doubtedly contributed its share to the unsettling of the moral bonds of women, as it did to that of the men. Women, surrounded by strange men, under conditions facilitating unaccustomed in- formality, and rapid personal acquaintance and selection ; and knowing that these men are shortly to be moved away, with slight possibility for fu- ture reencounters; find the maximally favorable conditions for slipping the leash of continence. This effect was produced not only on reckless girls of the type which tend to go ' ' astray ' ' at all times, but also on more mature and more circumspect women who under ordinary peace conditions would never have considered such license as even a remote possibility for themselves. Whether the fire of license which flamed dur- ing the war will contribute to other conflagrations 94 Personal Beauty of different origins, or whether it will die out leaving only its ashes and embers, remains to be seen. In either event, it will have left effects upon the problem of racial betterment. Sexual re- straints once thrown off by the individual are sel- dom regained ; sexual restraints thrown off by any important social group are regained only by a slow process of group-reconstruction if at all. This is an inevitable consequence of the nature of such conventions. The overlimitation of families by married couples of desirable grade is apparently due less to the tendencies of the husbands than to those of the wives. It is a common fallacy to assume that the maternal instinct is far stronger than the paternal. The explicit desire for children is com- mon to young men of the better type — and I be- lieve, more common than among young women of corresponding grade. Children recognize this in- stinct and respond to its manifestations in a strik- ing way. It is indeed something of which many a young man is rather ashamed — clearly because it is explicit, and a part of his normal sex impulse. The implicit effects of this instinct are even more remarkable, for it can be detected in the whole cycle of behavior which finally lands the man in matrimony. Whereas women have strong eco- nomic reasons for marrying, men as a rule have economic reasons against it: but although all the Racial Betterment 95 comforts of life can be secured more easily by the bachelor than by the benedict under modern conditions, the one great thing which can be se- cured only by marriage — namely, the possession of children — leads out of bachelorhood. This is especially true of the man who marries ''for love" only. The conservation of beauty is the problem of the present day and of all time. I have attempted to show that such conservation is not to be sought primarily through comprehensive governmental direction, nor legal restrictions; nor by blind adherence to the protective regulations of the past, however admirable these may have been. Laws, conventions, and economic conditions should be so shaped as to facilitate conservation, instead of hindering it; but this shaping, and the still greater work of active motivation is to be accomplished through education and publicity di- rected in the service of ideals kept continually vitalized; ideals of personal values, among which beauty, in the comprehensive mental and physical interpretation we have given it, is paramount. on CO CD :J\ Is •//)i vN' i)Vn, ky «= ^\\FUNIVER% ^lOSANCElfj-^ University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 • Box 951388 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. A> "J7: !7nnwvQm^i^' 'V/CJJ3AI o/-.. 81 ;^. h i 55 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 001047 650 5 ?-r« ti %Hfl^ l^^