The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1913-01-01
DIR. JoRDAN's GENEALoG1Es.


The dispatch from San Francisco
carried IN The Tribune Yesterday morn
ing which told of the tracing by DR..
David Starr Jordan of gcueaIogies OF
many people in this country, Is one
which will awaken widespread inter"
est. 1T appears that DR.. Jordan, in
spite Of the fact that he recently ad
mitted that there was no practical point
in his discussion of eugcnics, has IS
sued book called "Tho Ideal Eugen'
les, and in it he undertakes to
show that large numbers of people and
Of families in the United States may
have family trees reaching back to the
ancient royalty, TO mobiles and TO kings,
and that they arc (pcrhaps thcrefcrc)
cugenically ft. The manner IN which
be traces those genealogies would be of
interest to the public If it were givon,
and especially if IL were something
better defined than "'The Great Cryptic.
gram, - 'fThe Magician g Own Book, -
and works of that preteptious charac-
ter
DR.. Jordan is fruitful speculator in
academic fields, q man who considers
that when he has taken up theory
there must be something in it, for no
better reason than that he has taken
it up. The impossibility Of eugenics be-
ing practically applied is admitted on
all hands. The uDdcsirability Of apply
ing it even if it were practically pos
sible, is pointed out by Major Leonard
Darwin, who shows that while all arc
agreed that the fit should inherit the
earth. the difficulty is to find out who
are tho fit. There is some defect In
nearly everybody, and the ideally fit are
so few that it is impossible to conceive
Of procreatiop being limited TO those
very few. A correspondent Of the New
a general way, points out some Of the
defects In great characters. He shows
that Keats and Cecil Rhodes were
pretty diverse sort of men, each entitled
10 be called great, yet both were tuber
cular; Peter the Great deserved the
title, yet he was cpileptic, and the close
relation between great creative imagi-
nations and mental instability is we'll
known. We're the aucestries of such
men studied, examples Of marked de-
fects of one sort or another would
probably be found quite common, yet
notable result seems to have been the
issue. Take Lord Bacon, for instance.
Here was a surprisingly brilliant intel
lect united to such degree Of moral
obliquity that had he lived today in an
humble station he would probably have
been classed as a moral imbecile,
Major Darwin points out that TO
Judge human character sis one of the
most difficult Of arts. and yet the the
ory Of eugenics is largely based upon
the study Of human heredity,' and he
asks, "what does this amount to7'
And he thus illustrates: ga young
person with much scientific informa
tion but with little first hand knowledge
of life, interrogates people without sci
entifc habits of observation regarding
the physical and mental status of mem
bers of their own and other families
who have been dead in many cases so
many years that the information comes
as second or third hand; what is that
information worth9' And he concludes
by saying: "Pride, envy, jealousy, ig-
norance, all the weaknesses of human
nature combine to minimize the value
Of such testimony
But such testimony is all there is; it
is necessarily the foundation Of
eugenics. From that foundation the
investigator must proceed to the appli.
cation of the supposed principles
brought forth by such perverse, un-
scientific, and untrustwortby informa-
ton; and how shall he apply his theo-
ries? At once he is confronted with
the practical proposition which he can
not get around, that it is impossible to
apply them at all; for human nature
refuses TO be guided, limited, and shut
of by any system of ehgenics. The
mating Of mon and women is not to be
guided by measurements or by weigh.
ing on the scales, nor yet by imperfect
and untrustworthy information as to
the physical properties of forbears, of,
which nothing accurate is or can be
known.
IL DR.. Jordan'S gencalogies are no
more trustworthy than his foundations
in his attempted building up of sys.
TEN Of eugeuics, then indeed is his