RELATION OF EUGENICS TO EUTHENICS 479 



portance of continued selection if he would keep his stock up to stand- 

 ard. His motto is: "Breed only from the best." Is not selection an 

 equally important matter in the evolution of the human race? And 

 are we concerning ourselves sufficiently with the question of whether it 

 is being made, and in the right direction? 



There are those who claim that if unhampered the " natural " forces 

 will make such selection and will direct evolution along the proper 

 lines. They argue that the very defects of the pauper, the criminal, the 

 mentally defective and otherwise degenerate classes render them rela- 

 tively "unfit" for survival in the long run, so that they tend of their 

 very nature to become extinct; and they consider as pernicious any at- 

 tempt upon the part of society to better the condition of these unfor- 

 tunates — for unfortunate they are, since they are not themselves re- 

 sponsible for having come into the world with a bad inheritance. But 

 if we mean by "natural" forces and "natural selection" the part na- 

 ture plays uninfluenced by the hand of intelligent man, why should we 

 leave the evolution of mankind to its slow and uncertain action, when 

 we have found it to advantage to do otherwise with our domesticated 

 plants and animals ? If the breeder has born in his herd a sickly or ab- 

 normal or otherwise undesirable animal, he does not trust to its dying 

 of "natural" means, but his intelligence comes into play and he takes 

 means at once to eliminate it from his breeding stock. It may, in fact, 

 be of great service to him while it lives, as the ox, or its carcass may be 

 of value when it is killed, as a steer; but he is careful that its blood 

 shall not enter into the future generations of his herd. Is it not de- 

 sirable, and necessary, that we should employ equal intelligence to the 

 development of the human species that we do to our domestic animals? 

 We shall have to utilize special methods of elimination of the undesir- 

 able, but the general problem is the same. 



What has been said serves to indicate the prime importance of 

 giving thought to the hereditary factor in human betterment rather 

 than trusting to a blind faith in the establishment of an environmental 

 Utopia. The fundamental error in pampering and preserving the 

 defective and the criminal in order that he may produce more of his 

 kind, which shall in turn increase the drag on human progress, has 

 been pointed out so often and so well that more need not be said at this 

 time. It may be well, however, to turn our attention for a moment 

 to certain special social conditions and institutions in their relation 

 to eugenics. We have in this country a number of special problems 

 which are of the utmost importance to our civic development and well- 

 being. One of these is the race problem ; before this is solved, it will 

 be necessary that much more study and thought shall be given to the 

 genetic aspect of the matter. But an even greater menace, to my mind, 

 is that of indiscriminate immigration — for such restrictions as we have 

 on immigration at the present time are entirely inadequate. It is not 



