530 SOCIAL ASPECTS OF BIOLOGICAL RESULTS 



increasing the numbers of the effective, or negatively, in the 

 way of trying to reduce the multipHcation of the unfit. Inquiry 

 into these subjects is comparatively new, discussion of them 

 is still rare, a superstitious attitude towards them is still very 

 common — we cannot tell what may come about in a very gentle 

 way when a conscience relative to these things is developed, 

 or what might come about if some great social variation, e.g. 

 in the direction of democratisation and pacification, should 

 come about. 



Meanwhile, convinced as we are as to the hopefulness of various 

 forms of eugenic selection, we cannot but enter a protest against 

 the impetuous recommendations of some who seem to adhere 

 too exclusively to the biological — the breeder's — point of view, 

 who sometimes do not hesitate to suggest methods of surgical 

 elimination to an extent that is almost grotesque. 



We would suggest the following cautions : 



(i) We are far from being omniscient in regard to variations. 

 Some deteriorative changes are well known, and history has 

 given its verdict against them. Every one agrees that there 

 should be no breeding from epileptics, paralytics, lunatics, and 

 so on, but many other variations are unknown quantities. 

 The unpromising bud may burst into a fair flower. Virchow's 

 thesis of the pathological origin of some variations is not to be 

 lightly brushed aside. There is an optimism of pathology. 

 No one would propose to encourage the breeding of doubtful 

 variants on the off-chance of an occasional genius, but the race 

 owes much to weaklings none the less. A man belonging to a 

 family which has been manufacturing cystin for three generations 

 should not have children — he would not pass the German 

 marriage examination — but in himself he may be a very valuable 

 national asset. Some of the lists given by the social surgeons 

 are quaint in their unpracticality ; thus one includes " a criminal 

 taint " — as if that were a rarity, or as detectable as deaf- mutism 

 — and another includes " pauperism." 



