540 EVOLUTION, GENETICS, AND EUGENICS 



incalculable. It is not merely that, as Mr. Galton says, "There are a 

 vast number of conflicting ideals, of alternative characters, of incom- 

 patible civilizations; but they are wanted to give fullness and interest 

 to life. Society would be very dull if every man resembled the highly 

 estimable Marcus Aurelius or Adam Bede." The question is not 

 merely as to the interest of life. Much more important is the fact 

 that it takes all sorts to make a world. What is the development of 

 society but the result of the psychological division of labor in the social 

 organism ? And how could such division of labor be carried out if 

 we had not various types of laborers? What would be the good of 

 science if there were no poetry or music to live for? How would 

 poetry and music help us if we had not men of science to protect our 

 shores from plague ? Obviously the existence of men of most various 

 types is a necessity for any highly organized society. Even if eugenics 

 were capable — as it is not — of producing a complete and balanced 

 type, fit up to a point to turn out a satisfactory poem, a satisfactory 

 symphony or a satisfactory sofa, the utmost could not be expected of 

 such a man in any of these directions. In a word, as long as their 

 activities are not antisocial, men cannot be of too various types. We 

 require mystic and mathematician, poet and pathologist. Only, we 

 want good specimens of each. "The aim of eugenics," says 

 Mr. Galton, "is to represent each class or sect by its best specimens; 

 that done, to leave them to work out their common civilization in their 



own way Special aptitudes would be assessed highly by those 



who possessed them, as the artistic faculties by artists, fearlessness 

 of inquiry and veracity by scientists, religious absorption by mystics, 

 and so on. There would be self-sacrificers, self-tormentors, and 

 other exceptional idealists." But at least it is better to have good 

 rather than bad specimens of any kind, whatever that kind may be. 

 Mr. Galton thinks that all except cranks would agree as to including 

 health, energy, ability, manliness, and courteous disposition amongst 

 qualities uniformly desirable — alike in poet and pathologist. We 

 should desire also uniformity as to the absence of the antisocial 

 proclivities of the born criminal. So much uniformity being granted, 

 let us have with it the utmost conceivable variety — more, indeed, 

 than most of us can conceive. 



This point, of course, is cardinal from the point of view of practice. 

 No progress could be made with eugenics, it would be impossible even 

 to form a Eugenics Education Society, if each of us were to regard 

 the particular type he belongs to as the ideal, and were to seek merely 



