20 WHAT IS EUGENICS? 



is elastic. By further efforts, or by being placed in better 

 surroundings, our lot can always be improved somewhat. 

 In all circumstances the cable tying us to our hereditary 

 anchor can be stretched a bit more by pulling harder. This 

 is so, although it would be practically impossible to go on 

 lengthening it for ever. In the same way, we vaguely 

 know that, as regards all things that we are striving for, 

 there is a limit beyond which we cannot expect to go. 

 Yet this practically unattainable limit to our hopes should 

 not and does not fill us with despair. 



If we look to future generations, however, another story 

 has to be told. If an improvement in the breed of the race 

 comes to be made, this will be as if those who come after 

 us will find their anchors of heredity cast further in advance. 

 Such an improvement in natural qualities would mean that 

 our successors would have a better start in life. They 

 would be able to do as well as we have done with less exer- 

 tion. With efforts equal to those which we have made, 

 their lives would be more profitable than ours. The cables 

 attached to their fixed anchors would not drag them back 

 to the same extent. With no more trouble than we have 

 taken, they would be superior to us in mind and body. 

 That these results in the future can actually be obtained by 

 reforms adopted to-day is the hope held out to us by 

 eugenics. Is not this an inspiring hope ? 



