Chapter VII 



Inferior Stocks 



IT has been seen that the future weKare of our nation 

 might be greatly improved by attention now being 

 paid to the breed of the coming generations. This could 

 be done by making either superior stock leave more or 

 inferior stock leave fewer descendants behind them. The 

 methods of dealing with inferior stocks will first be 

 considered. 



A foohsh argument against aU attempts to lessen the 

 number of children produced by persons marked by any 

 serious natural inferiority may here be mentioned ; because 

 it is commonly met with. It has been said that men of 

 genius are often unhealthy, and that, as the aim of eugenics 

 is to get rid of all who are sickly, eugenic reform would 

 prevent the appearance in the future of many such admir- 

 able persons. To this contention there are several answers. 

 In the first place, the ill-health of remarkable men has been 

 greatly exaggerated. In the second place, it would only 

 be if some of the ancestors of the great men of the past 

 had been very defective that eugenic reform would have 

 prevented their appearance on earth ; and it is not asserted 

 that this was the case. Moreover, the suffering genius 

 himself would not be interfered with, because eugenics 

 does not propose to kill off all invahds. Lastly, if in the 

 future the appearance of a weakly child could really be 

 foretold, would it not also be possible to prophesy the 

 appearance of a genius ? And such an event no one would 

 try to prevent. The argument fails all along the line. 



The aim of eugenics is, on the contrary, to promote the 

 appearance of all manner of men likely to benefit their 

 fellow creatures. How is this to be done ? If we could 



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