This is interesting in that it seems pretty defeatist. The "race" will degenerate, but we can at least slow it down! I wonder if there's a sense in which "soft" eugenicists, in addition to blaming different factors and using different methods to combat them, are also "soft" in their aspirations. This is dramatically different from the "hard" eugenicists but also reform eugenicists--who did take environment into account--who were intent on creating supermen.

Really interesting. I wonder to what degree the celebration of mestizaje was about the whitening of the population, away from Indigeneity, and to what degree it was really about celebrating racial mixtures. This reminds me of questions within Black eugenic thought of the early 20th century, with authors such as Pauline Hopkins celebrating racially mixed people/characters as the "highest" types (though she does have some non-mixed eugenically superior Black characters as well).

The wording of this passage is such that it's not entirely clear who feel no rays of intelligence penetrate their spirit--mad people or blind people. "Rays" suggest light and link intelligence to vision, but the clause could also refer to mad people who cause such "repugnance." Either way, Dios Peza is justifying medical ableism by agreeing with its supposed causes.