SHALL WE IMPROVE OUR RACE? 77 



bodied, but also the intelligent, men, and leaves at home for repro- 

 ductive purposes the weak-minded. On the other hand, we keep the 

 robbers in prison, but this wise measure was meant for a result which 

 it does not produce, the terrorizing of malefactors, and produces a 

 result for which it was not meant, a decrease in the posterity of offend- 

 ers. Men of genius and their families have to-day a better chance to 

 survive than they had in the paleolithic age, but how many eminent 

 men spend their whole life in a desperate struggle against poverty and 

 connected diseases, because their genius is not of the kind which brings 

 wealth through the sale of patents ! 



And if through sheer chance, some great mathematician is evolved 

 one day out of the crowd, the state — who should be ever on the watch 

 for such events and whose main care should be to preserve and in- 

 crease such sources of light, progress and national glory — does noth- 

 ing to protect the man of genius against care, disease or anything 

 likely to shorten life nor to multiply the splendid thinking machine 

 which that man is. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred our mathe- 

 matician marries a woman whose family did not count a single astron- 

 omer, physicist or other mathematical mind among its members. The 

 result of such a union is what could be expected. Although genius 

 does not generally die out right away in the first generation, it de- 

 creases by half, and further dilutions soon bring it down to nothing- 

 ness. We know that half a dozen Goethes, Longfellows, Pasteurs, 

 Edisons or Curies will do more to illustrate a period and raise a nation 

 in the eyes of posterity than the most prosperous trade, the most 

 thriving industry or than ten successful wars, yet we rely on chance 

 and on chance alone to get those men. Breeders in their treatment 

 of cattle are more up to date in that respect than the state in its 

 management of men. 



Such is our error and some may think that it is beyond correction. 

 In our present state of civilization, compulsion in matter of marriage 

 is out of the question. That is true, but compulsion need not be consid- 

 ered when inducement will succeed. If we bear in mind that lack of 

 money delays or prevents many marriages and that a dowry every- 

 where increases a girl's chances to be married, we shall have an idea 

 of the way in which the next generation will probably solve the prob- 

 lem. Most young men would consent to take a wife in England rather 

 than in their own city if they were given a life pension for so doing; 

 most men of genius would consent to take a wife from a number of 

 selected young ladies rather than in the crowd if they were forever freed 

 from pecuniary cares and moreover given the assurance that another 

 dowry would be paid at the birth of every one of their children. Why 

 such unions should be less happy than others is not easy to see. The 

 best conjugal harmony is not necessarily found where one of the two 



