The only drag upon human acts of every kind is now that great political maxim, the non-observance of which has often deluged the earth with blood; "Sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas," which is to say: So use thine own as not to injure thy neighbor.

This "drag of the race" or "pull of ancestors" is no doubt due to the fact that selection has never been practiced, hence the two-thousand nearby ancestors were most likely an average lot of people, and the "pull" is from the higher towards the lower level.