1. Physical normality provides energy.
2. Mental capacity gives mental grasp.
3. Aggressiveness. }
}produce efficiency.
4. Concentration. }
5. Sympathy leads to harmony with things and coöperation with men.
6. Vision shows itself in ideals.
The energy to do; and the mental grasp to appreciate; together with the capacity to choose efficiently, furnish the basis for achievement. Achievement, however, is not in itself a guarantee of worth unless its course is shaped by sympathy and directed toward a goal which is determined by the prophetic power of vision. Such are the characteristics which, combined in one individual, insure completeness of life. About them, philosophers have reasoned and poets have sung. They are the acme of human perfection—the ideal of individual attainment.
Though they have been thus idealized, these qualities are not new. They have existed for ages, as they exist to-day, occasionally combined in one individual but usually appearing separately in members of the social group. They form part of the heritage of the human race, and in spite of neglect and lack of fostering, they are widespread in all sections of the population. The production of a race of men and women, a great majority of whom shall possess these qualities, will mean the next great step in human achievement.
The Super Man has lived for ages. The Greeks traced the descent of their heroes and heroines—their Super Men—from the Gods. It was thus that they explained exceptional ability. Exceptional men live to-day, as they did in ancient Greece, directing the thought and work of the times. They possess the qualities of the Super Man—physical normality, mental capacity, aggressiveness, concentration, sympathy and vision; and, above all, we now understand that they are not the offspring of the gods, but the sons of men and women whose combined parental qualities inevitably produced Super Men. The Super Man is not a theory, nor an accident, but a natural product of natural conditions.
Though the Super Man may be met with occasionally in modern society, and though the qualities ascribed to him are manifest everywhere among those who have had an opportunity for their development; opinions still differ as to the possibility of producing a Super Race. An even greater difference of opinion is encountered when an attempt is made to formulate the means which should be adopted to secure such an end; yet there can be little difference of opinion as to the desirability, from a national as well as from an individual standpoint, of creating a race of Super Men.
The call of the present age for a Super Race is thus voiced by Yeats,[2]
“O Silver Trumpets! Be you lifted up,
And cry to the great race that is to come.
Long throated swans, amid the Waves of Time,
Sing loudly, for beyond the wall of the World
It waits, and it may hear and come to us.”
We long for the coming of the Super Race. We aim toward this goal. Can it be compassed in finite time? Is Nietzsche right when he says,—“I teach you beyond-man.” “All beings hitherto have created something beyond themselves.” “What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal.” “Not whence ye come, be your honor in the future, but whither ye go!” “In your children ye shall make amends for being your father’s children. Thus ye shall redeem all that is past.”[3]
Shall we make amends to the future? Come, then, let us reason together concerning the measures which must be adopted to raise the standard of succeeding generations. There are three means which lie ready at hand: three sciences which lend themselves to our task: three tools with which we may shape the Super Race. They are:
1. Eugenics—The science of race culture.