EUGENICS AND WAE 425 



duty therefore to scan with careful criticism all practical proposals 

 that may be hurriedly projected to meet crises of war strain. One in- 

 stance may suffice. Unless the worst come to the worst, the nation 

 should not consent to put children at the disposal of the farmer, for 

 the effect of this would be to decrease the already too much restricted 

 freedom of the child, and to depress still further the position of the 

 agricultural laborer, for the needed improvement of which something 

 would probably have been done ere now, had there not been war. An- 

 other danger, which may be mentioned, is that of permitting an inter- 

 ference with the liberty and dignity of women, which would not be 

 tolerated in the case of men. 



As eugenists we must resist in ourselves, and in all our organizations, 

 the natural desire to economize in noble luxuries — in pictures and 

 music, books and lectures, theaters and higher education. By all means 

 let our criticism of consumption be intensified, but let it be enlightened. 

 Let us prune our comforts before we pinch our souls. For apart from 

 ourselves, who may be past praying for, economizing on the nobler lux- 

 uries means hardship and celibacy to those finer spirits who are the salt 

 of the earth, whose virtue all must wish to see conserved in the natural 

 inheritance of the race. 



Without losing hold of the true idea and ideal of the state as a 

 body politic — an organism — in which we all have our function, from 

 cabinet ministers to road-members, we can not suppose that we are all 

 equally irreplaceable. Indeed, the eye can not say unto the hand I 

 have no need of thee, nor again, the head to the feet I have no need of 

 you ; but it will be agreed that true artists, for instance, are among the 

 higher, less readily replaceable members of the community. There is 

 no risk for us of there being too many of them. But there is great 

 risk for them of there being too few of us to keep them and their art 

 alive. The enforced economies of war imply lopping off super-neces- 

 saries; the danger is of crippling super-men. What has been said of 

 artists applies also to the professions generally, and one recognizes the 

 eugenic wisdom of the Professional Classes War Relief Council. 



Those who have really learned the eugenic lesson are those who ap- 

 preciate the organismal factor in evolution, who believe that the funda- 

 mental thing is the natural inheritance, bred in the bone. To those of 

 this outlook it seldom seems promiseful to try to change by coercion 

 what is intrinsic in the creature. The hopeful line is to make the 

 most and the best of what we have, without tampering with that main- 

 spring of life which is freedom. It is likely that we shall have many 

 occasions for standing fast by this principle in the readjustments after 

 the war. Attempts will be made to rush schemes which are non-eugenie 

 in the sense of being coercive and incongruent with our racial tempera- 

 ment. One of these will be compulsory military training, of which 



