EVOLUTION OF MAN AND ITS CONTROL 55 



The choice of methods must be governed by considerations of social 

 welfare and individual happiness, and means must always vary with 

 persons and circumstances. 



The most radical remedy of all is proposed by McKim in his scheme 

 of a lethal chamber. Since our one relic of the death penalty, however, 

 in the case of murderers, is falling into disuse on excellent grounds, it is 

 undesirable to suggest any such violent method of assisting evolution. 

 Public opinion would be equally opposed to Plato's scheme of surrepti- 

 tiously disposing of babies that failed to come up to specifications. Ke- 

 spect for human life as such has been established by society at too much 

 sacrifice to admit of its being recklessly imperilled. 



Castration is too severe a penalty for general application, though 

 perhaps advisable in cases of rape, but Eentoul's operation, a simple 

 process by which sexuality is retained but sterility produced, has much 

 in its favor. In Indiana such a method has been enacted, but in gen- 

 eral it could not fail to meet with great opposition among voters and 

 legislators. 



The most practical method under present conditions seems to be 

 compulsory segregation, already followed in prisons and reformatories 

 and needing only to be extended and modified. Since the confinement 

 of the proscribed classes ought to be made terminable only by old age 

 or voluntary sterilization, humanity dictates that in many cases celibate 

 isolation be substituted for imprisonment. It is advisable that islands 

 be used for one-sex colonies, thus interfering less with the happiness 

 and health of the defective persons, allowing some degree of self-sup- 

 port, and making it possible for ability in special directions to manifest 

 itself. The great advantage of this method is that, while combining 

 effective eugenics with far greater humanity than the present prison 

 system, it would remove the more powerful influences for evil perma- 

 nently from the environment of the next generation, thus accelerating 

 social progress to a marvelous extent. 



In the case of certain congenital defectives such as the deaf, it might 

 be sufficient to prohibit marriage with blood-relations or with other 

 similarly afflicted persons. Some of the congenitally blind, deaf and 

 epileptic might even be allowed their liberty under parole to refrain 

 from reproduction or under a suspended sentence of celibate isolation. 



Chapter III. The Direct Action of the Environment 

 Our review of the projects of artificial selection has shown that de- 

 liberate breeding from the best is for the present impossible, as well as 

 opposed to ethical and social progress, but that the prevention of breed- 

 ing from the worst is both practicable and in accordance with the best 

 present interest of society. 



The direct action of the environment has been mentioned as, aside 



