364 The Journal 
reach? Can genetics and eugenics 
register in human betterment, in im- 
provement of the stock itself? Surely 
they can if we will have it so. But will 
we consent? Again surely yes. The 
ideal of a human race wholesome in its 
innate character is so beautiful that it 
must winits way. Caring for the weak, 
comforting the sick, rescuing and regen- 
erating the base, are beautiful, but how 
much more beautiful it is to build a race 
that is physically sound, intellectually 
keen and strong and whose natural 
impulses are wholesome! Not a race of 
men who are decent because they are 
restrained from following their natural 
bent, but a race whose natural quality 
is wholesome, who need not so much to 
restrain as to develop themselves. This 
seems destined to be included in the 
religion of the future, and it is Christian; 
not in Jesus’ thought, so far as we can 
judge, but a necessary development of 
his gospel of altruism. If the facts of 
human inheritance are as they seem 
to be, man’s future takes on a new 
glory. 
ANTITOXIN FOR CIVILIZATION 
Thirty years ago Carpenter’ wrote a 
keenly interesting essay in which he 
depicted civilization as a disease from 
which no people, once afflicted, has 
ever made a good recovery. He traced 
its history in several peoples, showing 
its similarity in all, the same prodromal 
stages, its culmination in feverish 
strength, and the patient left either 
dead or permanently weakened. It was 
not a pleasant study, for it had too much 
of truth. The people who make eugen- 
ics part of their religion and are loyal 
to its truth will have found the antitoxin 
for this dire disease, and with it the 
fountain of youth. But this is a dream 
of the distant future, the day of that 
ultimate race that shall people the whole 
earth. Yet we can carry this dream 
of Heredity 
with us, can have the inspiration of the 
vision, and can be loyal to it in our 
endeavor to secure to children their 
right to be well born. 
We have said that the gospel of eu- 
genics is Christian. Can any follower 
of Jesus see this ideal understandingly 
without finding that all his loyalty to 
Jesus’ gospel of altruism is back of it 
to push it? Eugenics is also Confucian. 
This religion of common sense maxims, 
if it be called religion, has broad contacts 
with the religion of eugenics. There are 
also possible considerable contacts with 
Buddhistic philosophy. Forgetfulness 
of self and merging all into the infinite 
completeness of the whole Communion 
of the Universe are ideas that readily 
unite with the ideal of eugenics. Islam 
is not sufficiently altruistic to let us 
hope that it can help toward the enforc- 
ing of eugenics, though pride of birth 
and joy in worthy sons is highly 
characteristic of many Mohammedan 
peoples. Shintoism might be brought 
to urge improving the quality of those 
who are to be given as ancestors to 
posterity. The contacts with Shintoism 
may conceivably prove of practical 
value. 
Among the civilizations of the world 
positive antagonism to eugenics is 
hardly to be expected. Buddhism is 
too contemplative to push anything. 
Shintoistic-Buddhistic-Christian Japan, 
with her readiness to adopt new 
conceptions if they look to national 
advantage, may perhaps be among 
the first to grasp and enforce eugenic 
ideals. But for itsreal growth eugenics 
seems, as a matter of fact, if not 
of philosophy, to be dependent chiefly 
upon Christian civilization. It is wholly 
Christian, though not exclusively so, 
and nothing less seems truly and 
adequately Christian. 
7 Carpenter, Edward, “Civilization, Its Cause and Cure.’”’ London, 1889. 
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