EUGENICS 



gains of good nurture are not 

 handed on, neither are the losses 

 due to deteriorative nurture, (b, 

 The bodily and mental health of 

 mothers, which depends in part on 

 individual nurture, influences thf 

 general development of the un 

 born child, which lives in long ante- 

 natal partnership with her. Thus 

 nurture indirectly affects the; 

 general vigour of the race, (c) The 

 new departures in a race, known as 

 variations or mutations (nee Evo- 

 lution), appear to be expressions of 

 intrinsic changes in the constitu- 

 tion of the germ. In course of de- 

 velopment these find expression, 

 and they have to stand the criti- 

 cism of everyday life. It is plain 

 that a promising new departure, 

 whether idiosyncrasy, originality, 

 or genius, may be nipped in the 

 bud without congenial nurture. 



The results of nurture may thus 

 prove of great importance as part 

 of that social system which decides 

 whether new departures are to sur- 

 vive or not. Promising novelties, 

 which the eugenist regards as the 

 raw materials of progress, the 

 most precious things in life, may 

 fail to persist, and the race is ob- 

 viously the poorer if the clever 

 artist or musician is starved into 

 celibacy. Fortunately the same 

 process may operate against the 

 establishment of variations in vice 

 or criminality. 



The question arises how the in- 

 trinsic endowment can be practi- 

 cally controlled. To this it may be 

 answered, that while men and 

 women cannot select their parents, 

 they can and do select their part- 

 ners in life. This may operate, in 

 the first place, negatively. There 

 are unsound types of constitution 

 who should not become parents, 

 because by so doing they still 

 further deteriorate the quality of 

 the race. There are some types of 

 constitutional disease, defect, or 

 unsoundness which have peculiar 

 staying power in inheritance, 

 which sometimes behave as Men- 

 delian characters. These should 

 be allowed to die out. 



Eugenics and Legislation 



A character like colour-blindness, 

 which usually passes from a father 

 through an unaffected daughter to 

 a grandson, is not of great moment, 

 but no one can contemplate with- 

 out grave regret the spoiling of a 

 more or less sound stock by the in- 

 troduction of predisposition to 

 diabetes or S. Vitus's Dance, a 

 well-defined mental instability, or 

 a defect like deaf-mutism. How 

 far eugenic legislation should go is 

 a difficult question. It ie certainly 

 desirable to educate public opinion 

 so as to form rational prejudices 

 against the spoiling of approxi- 



3OO4 



mately good stock by bad, strong 

 by weakly, fine by poor. Without 

 adopting drastic measures a 

 nation might do much in the way 

 of negative eugenics. 



In some races, e.g. Jews and 

 Chinese, the strong eugenic tradi- 

 tion has expressed itself in a pride 

 in sustaining a vigorous, alert, 

 wholesome lineage. Preoccupa- 

 tion with the struggle for wealth, 

 selfish love of ease, and immoral 

 gratifications of the sex-impulse 

 tend to destroy pride in having a 

 vigorous family. That many celi- 

 bates are the salt of the earth does 

 not dispose of the fact that there 

 are selfish, we may almost say non- 

 mammalian, forms of celibacy. A 

 few social arrangements, e.g. in 

 connexion with taxation, seek to 

 lessen the difficulty of bringing up 

 a family, and Galton contemplated 

 the direct pecuniary encourage- 

 ment of the early marriages of 

 highly desirable members of the 

 community. 



Eugenic and Economic Ideals 



It may be doubted, however, 

 whether indirect encouragement 

 is not much safer. A community 

 which realizes the racial value of 

 types with, let us say, high ar- 

 tistic gifts associated with health, 

 will in its criticised expenditure 

 tend to secure their continuance. 

 The applications of this economic 

 idea of " the criticism of consump- 

 tion " are endless and far-reaching. 

 All expenditure which promotes 

 unhealthy rather than healthy oc- 

 cupations, which helps to multiply 

 undesirable types, which makes for 

 sweated labour and slums rather 

 than for well-paid work and 

 gardens, is necessarily dysgenic, 

 and not eugenic. In many ways it 

 will probably be found possible to 

 combine eugenic and economic 

 ideals by ceasing to penalise 

 maternity. 



When primitive man's mastery 

 of nature was only beginning, there 

 must have been an intense struggle 

 for existence The ranks were 

 thinned by storm and flood, by 

 famine and pestilence, by wild 

 beasts and poisonous herbs. When 

 the thinning was sifting, i.e. when 

 those who survived did so in virtue 

 of some quality, say of vigour or 

 alertness, which those who perished 

 lacked, then it was natural selec- 

 tion, and made for evolution. With 

 the progress of civilization there 

 has been a continual rebellion of 

 men against the yoke of natural 

 selection. 



The growth of kin-sympathy 

 and social solidarity has led to 

 persistent endeavours to interfere 

 with the crudity of natural selec- 

 tion, and to save the weak, the 

 diseased, and the foolish. Here is a 



EUGENICS 



dilemma where biological and social 

 ideals are opposed. It is biologi- 

 cally unsound that the unhealthy 

 and unstable should be allowed to 

 multiply their kind , it is socially 

 unsound that altruistic sympathies 

 should be outraged. This dilemma 

 still remains. 



" Social Surgery " 



The problem is to substitute for 

 nature's regime, which man has in 

 great part abolished, a process of 

 rational selection which will sift out 

 the tares from the wheat. The 

 seriousness of the dilemma has led 

 to proposals implying some mea- 

 sure of " social surgery." It has 

 been suggested that obviously un- 

 desirable types who have fallen 

 back upon the community for sup- 

 port should be prevented from re- 

 producing their kind. 



Objections against this are (1) 

 that in some measure society may be 

 responsible for the making of those 

 absolute failures, and that their 

 production as much as their repro- 

 duction should be stopped ; (2) that 

 measures of repression and segrega- 

 tion are repugnant to the social sen- 

 timents of freedom and solidarity. 

 Some strong-minded counsellors, 

 not lacking in humane feelings, 

 have advised a return to " the pur- 

 gation of the state " which Sparta 

 to some extent practised and Plato 

 approved. It has been suggested 

 that weakly infants whose life must 

 be more or less miserable should be 

 allowed to pass away in their sleep. 

 The gravest objections to this are : 



(1) that many weaklings have been 

 makers and shakers of the world ; 



(2) that the proposals outrun our 

 present secure knowledge ; (3) that 

 it would remove the results of evil 

 without touching the causes ; and 

 (4) that it outrages social sentiment 

 in its finest expressions. 



Another line seems at present 

 safer and more promising, namely a 

 criticism of the processes which 

 thin the ranks of mankind. Some 

 of these are more or less indiscrimi- 

 nate elimination, as microbic dis- 

 eases like cholera. As such diseases 

 do not select the weaker as their 

 victims, leaving the stronger to sur- 

 vive, their reduction, much marked 

 in modern times, is in a eugenic di- 

 rection. A wasteful thinning of the 

 population is avoided, and many 

 fine lives, which might have been 

 gratuitously sacrificed, are saved. 



The reduction of infantile morta- 

 lity, which has still a long way to 

 go, must be approved by all eugen- 

 ists. Similarly, the reduction of 

 infection by the tubercle bacillus 

 operates against a profitless wast- 

 age of fine types. The case of syphi- 

 lis is more difficult, since its cura- 

 bility may remove a deterrent from 

 vice ; but a consideration of the 



