HEEEDITY BATESON. 383 



contain fantasies much further from physiological truth than those 

 which the rationalists of the " Enclyclopsedia " adopted as the basis 

 of their social schemes. For men are so far from being born equal or 

 similar that to the naturalist they stand as the very type of a poly- 

 morphic specieSo Even most of our local races consist of many dis- 

 tinct strains and individual types. From the population of any 

 ordinary English town as many distinct human breeds could in a 

 few generations be isolated as there are now breeds of dogs, and 

 indeed such a population in its present state is much what the dogs 

 of Europe would be in 10 years' time but for the interference of the 

 fanciers. Even as. at present constituted, owing to the isolating 

 effects of instinct, fashion, occupation, and social class, many in- 

 cipient strains already exist. 



In one resj^ect civilized man differs from all other species of animal 

 or plant in that, having prodigious and ever-increasing power over 

 nature, he invokes these powers for the preservation and maintenance 

 of many of the inferior and all the defective members of his species. 

 The inferior freely multiply, and the defective, if their defects be not 

 so grave as to lead to their detention in prisons or asylums, multiply 

 also without restraint. Heredity being strict in its action, the- conse- 

 quences are in civilized countries much what they would be in the 

 kennels of the dog breeder who continued to preserve all his puppies, 

 good and bad ; the proportion of defectives increases. The increase is 

 so considerable that outside every great city there is a smaller town 

 inhabited by defectives and those who wait on them. Round London 

 we have a ring of such towns with some 30,000 inhabitants, of whom 

 about 28,000 are defective, largely, though, of course, by no means 

 entirely, bred from previous generations of defectives. Now, it is not 

 for us to consider practical measures. As men of science we observe 

 natural events and deduce conclusions from them. I may perhaps be 

 allowed to say that the remedies proposed in America, in so far as 

 they aim at the eugenic regulation of marriage on a comprehensive 

 scale, strike me as devised without regard to the needs either of in- 

 dividuals or of a modern State. Undoubtedly if the}'' decide to breed 

 their population of one uniform puritan gray, they can do it in a few 

 generations; but I doubt if timid respectability will make a nation 

 happy, and I am sure that qualities of a different sort are needed if it 

 is to compete with more vigorous and more varied communities. 

 Everyone must have a preliminary s^^mpathy with the aims of 

 eugenists both abroad and at home. Their efforts at the least are 

 doing something to discover and spread truth as to the physiological 

 structure of society. The spirit of such organizations, however, 

 almost of necessity suffers from a bias toward the accepted and 

 the ordinary, and if they had power it would go hard with many 

 ingredients of society that could be ill-spared. I notice an ominous 



