HUMAN CONSERVATION 53 1 



Or, take another example. Elizabeth Tuttle, the grandmother of 

 Jonathan Edwards whose remarkable progeny was referred to in a 

 preceding chapter, is described as a "woman of great beauty, of tall 

 and commanding appearance, striking carriage, of strong will, extreme 

 intellectual vigor and mental grasp akin to rapacity," but with an 

 extraordinary deficiency in moral sense. She was divorced from her 



husband "on the ground of adultery and other immoralities 



The evil trait was in the blood, for one of her sisters murdered her 

 own son and a brother murdered his own sister." That Jonathan 

 Edwards owed his remarkable qualities largely to his grandmother 

 rather than to his grandfather is shown by the fact that Richard 

 Edwards, the grandfather, married again after his divorce and had 

 five sons and one daughter, but none of their numerous progeny "rose 

 above mediocrity, and their descendants gained no abiding reputa- 

 tion." As shown by subsequent events, it would have been a great 

 eugenic mistake to have deprived the world of Elizabeth Tuttle's 

 germplasm, although it would have been easy to find judges to con- 

 demn her. 



Dr. C. V. Chapin recently said with reference to the eugenic 

 regulation of marriage by physician's certificate: "The causes of 

 heredity are many and very conflicting. The subject is a difficult one, 

 and I for one would hesitate to say, in a great many cases where I have 

 a pretty good knowledge of the family, where marriage would, or 

 would not, be desirable." 



Desirability and undesirability must always be regarded as rela- 

 tive terms more or less indefinable. In attempting to define them, it 

 makes a great difference whether the interested party holds to a 

 puritan or a cavalier standard. To show how far human judgment 

 may err as well as how radically human opinion changes, there were in 

 England, as recently as 1819, 233 crimes punishable by death accord- 

 ing to law. 



One needs only to recall the days of the Spanish Inquisition or of 

 the Salem witchcraft persecution to realize what fearful blunders 

 human judgment is capable of, but it is unlikely that the world will 

 ever see another great religious inquisition, or that in applying to man 

 the newly found laws of heredity there will ever be undertaken an 

 equally deplorable eugenic inquisition. 



It is quite apparent, finally, that although great caution and 

 broadness of vision must be exercised in bringing about the fulfilment 

 of the highest eugenic ideals, nevertheless in this direction lies the 

 future path of human achievement. 



