clear if the distribution of the responsiveness to alcoholic stimulus is recalled. Some really valuable strains, marked by this susceptibility, may be eliminated through the death of some individuals from debauchery and the penalization of others in preferential mating; this would be avoided if narcotics were not
- In selection for eugenic improvement, it is desirable not to have to select for too many traits at once. If alcoholism could, through prohibition, be eliminated from consideration, it would just so far simplify the problem of eugenics.
- Drunkenness interferes with the effectiveness of means for family limitation, so that if his alcoholism is not extreme, the drunkard's family is sometimes larger than it would otherwise be.
On the other hand, prohibition is dysgenic and intemperance is eugenic in their effect on the species in so far as alcoholism is correlated with other undesirable characters and brings about the elimination of undesirable strains. But