1908] on Biology and History. 59 



" Through Nature only can we ascend," and the merit of the 

 eugenic proposal is that it is built upon "the solid gronnd of 

 Nature." 



To the economist, it declares tliat the culture of tlie racial life is 

 the vital industry of any people. 



It is to work through marriage, an institution more ancient than 

 mankind, and supremely valuable in its services to childhood — with 

 which lies all human destiny. Neither Mr. Galton, nor the recently 

 founded Eugenics Education Society, countenances for a moment the 

 insane and vicious proposals which falsely assume that the methods 

 of the stud farm are applicable to man — who is not an erected 

 horse. 



Eugenics appeals to the individual, asking for a little imagina- 

 tion — to make us realise that the future will one day be the present, 

 and that to serve it is to serve no fiction or phantom, but a reality 

 as real as the present generation. 



It teaches the responsibility of the noblest and most sacred of 

 all professions, which is parentage, and it makes a sober and 

 dignified claim to be regarded as a constituent of the religion of 

 the future. 



It goes to the root of the matter : where the well-meaning, but 

 short-sighted, pin their faith on the hospitals, the eugenist seeks to 

 brand the transmission of hereditary disease as a crime, and thus 

 literally to extirpate it altogether. 



That its methods are practicable is proved by the fact that it is 

 practised — as by the northern society for the ''' permanent care of the 

 feeble-minded," just referred to. 



National eugenics ofl'ers, I submit, our sole chance of escape from 

 the fate which has overtaken all previous civilisations ; and suggests 

 the principles of a New Imperialism. It honours men and women, by 

 declaring that human parentage is crowned with responsibility to the 

 unborn, and to all time coming ; and that man, the animal in body, is 

 also a self-conscious being, " looking before and after," who is human 

 because he is responsible ; and to whom the laws of nature have been 

 revealed, not to satisfy an intellectual curiosity, but for the highest 

 end conceivable — the elevation of his race. 



Says Wordsworth : — 



" Having brought the books 

 Of modern statists to their proper test, 

 Life, human life, with all its sacred claims ; 



And having thus discerned how dire a thing 



Is worshipped in that idol proudly named 



' The Wealth of Nations ' ; where alone that wealth 



Is lodged, and how increased : and having gained 



A more judicious knowledge of the worth 



And dignity of individual man, 



