The Editor: Constructive Euc>i<:nics 



450 



able and prudent policy for society to 

 adopt, any attempt to distinguish 

 certain strains as superior and to give 

 special encouragement to them would 

 probably fail to accomplish the object 

 proposed." . . . "It must suffice 

 to point out that whereas our experience 

 of what constitute the extremes of 

 unfitness is fairly realizable and definite, 

 we have but little to guide us in esti- 

 mating the qualities for which society 

 has or may have a use, or the numerical 

 proportions in which they may be 

 required." 



Few will disagree with these judg- 

 ments ; yet they must not be interpreted 

 too broadly. We can indeed segregate 

 the feebleminded and epileptic, but that 

 gives no warrant for so-called "eugenic 

 legislation" restricting marriage, as 

 Professor Bateson himself has vigorously 

 pointed out on many occasions. On 

 the other side, it is true that we can not 

 yet breed intelligently for many definite 

 points of social value; and yet it seems 

 to me that all are agreed on certain 

 fundamental principles which make 

 constructive eugenics entirely feasible. 

 Galton himself laid down the principle 

 that the most important thing to breed 

 for was energy ; to this we may add good 

 health, longevity, intellect and morality; 

 for few will be found to deny that these 

 characters form desirable attributes, 

 and that they are heritable, even though 

 we can not show the exact method of 

 their inheritance. 



This alone, it seems to me, constitutes 

 ample warrant for all rational attempts 

 to forward the constructive side of 

 eugenics, and we can reinforce it by the 

 proof, now abundant, that the effects of 

 even the best enviromnent are slight 

 in comparison with the effects of these 

 inherited forces — or the lack of them. 



Evidently the 13 contributors to the 

 book under consideration hold much the 

 same views. Each one thinks the hope 

 of the future is in influencing marriage 

 selection by the force — conscious or 

 unconscious — of public opinion. Dr. 

 Barker seems to strike the keynote of 

 the whole book when, in the introduc- 

 tion, he declares, "the cultivation of a 

 healthy public opinion regarding mar- 

 riage and parenthood will, it seems 

 probable, be more efficient in promoting 



eugenics than anything that can be 

 done by way of legislation, at any rate 

 at present." 



LIMITATIONS OF ACTION. 



This, in substance, is the mode which 

 all of the lecturers, from their diverse 

 standpoints, agree in accepting as the 

 practicable mode of procedure. There 

 is no suggestion of breeding a superior 

 race under live-stock conditions, as the 

 lay press too frequently assumes to be 

 the ideal of eugenists; indeed, as Dr. 

 Carruth emphatically remarks, "The 

 only extensive positive impulses to 

 breeding given under civilization, so far 

 as I can discover, have been the breeding 

 of negroes and hybrids for slaves, the 

 breeding of women for concubines in 

 oriental countries, and the subsidizing 

 of the breeding of men for cannon-food 

 in various great imperial countries." 



One after another, the lecturers 

 arrive at the same position. None has 

 a panacea to propose, but each one 

 believes — and many give convincing 

 reasons for their belief — that public 

 sentiment can be so enlightened as to 

 produce the ends which eugenists seek, 

 without further measures. "Society 

 may choose to breed from the bottom," 

 as Dr. Thorndike puts it, "but it does 

 not have to." 



Dr. Howell, in common with nearly 

 all of the speakers, holds close to the 

 lines laid down by Galton. 



"So long as we hold to our good 

 custom of founding marriage mainly on 

 affection and mutual attractiveness," 

 he suggests, "it is a difficult and delicate 

 matter to influence the direction that 

 fancy may take. Mr. Galton looked 

 at the subject in a practical and sensible 

 way. He calls attention to the fact 

 that it is our custom to allow many con- 

 siderations to play a minor part in this 

 question of selecting one's partner for 

 life — considerations of race, or religion, 

 of occupation, of financial standing, 

 etc., etc., and what he hoped for was, 

 that as a result of general education in 

 regard to the influence of heredity, 

 eugenical considerations may also take 

 their part among those factors whose 

 additive influence determines the choice 

 that is made. This is a moderate and 

 conservative suggestion, but quite suffi- 



