26 WHAT IS EUGENICS? 



such a plan may seem attractive to those who consider 

 it certain that their own descendants would not be included 

 in any such caste. Slavery is now condemned because it is 

 always demoralizing to the slave owner, as well as being 

 generally cruel to the slave. The endeavour to create 

 inferior and docile human breeds is to be condemned on like 

 grounds. 



Our object should be, therefore, to improve the breed of 

 the whole nation. And in this endeavour we should not 

 attempt to lay down a single standard of excellence, with 

 the object of preventing or discouraging parenthood in all 

 who fall below that standard. Such a standard would have 

 to take into account bodily fitness, intellect, and tem- 

 perament or character ; and as regards none of these attri- 

 butes have we at present sufficiently reliable methods of 

 measurement for such a purpose. 



The most practical way of judging grown men is by 

 seeing how they are fulfilling the duties of the positions 

 which they actually hold. If all who are now winning good 

 wages by doing good work were to have rather more than 

 enough children to fill their places when they will be gone, 

 the ranks of such well-paid occupations would thus be kept 

 full, with some to spare. If all doing ill-paid work were to 

 have families so small that their numbers would not be 

 maintained in the next generation, there would come to be 

 fewer applicants for such labour. If this went on for long, 

 the result would be that either wages would rise, or that this 

 ill-paid work would have to be done in some other way. 

 If the unemployed had few children, this would in like 

 manner lessen unemployment in the future, with all its 

 attendant misery. In these rather rough-and-ready ways 

 the needs of the nation as regards the number of its people 

 would best be met. 



The point here is, however, that by thus regulating the 

 size of families the breed of the nation would also be 

 improved. Men differ greatly amongst themselves, and 

 so do the qualities demanded by the different kinds of work 

 which have to be done. If all men honourably employed 



