248 THE LIMITATIONS OF SCIENCE 



tion of scientific method; they are vague and char- 

 acterized by a lack of any accurate thinking. Indeed, 

 it is difficult to obtain an idea of what the eugenists 

 aim to do or how they expect to work. Curiously 

 enough, considering his lack of scientific training, Plato 

 seems to be the one who saw the problem clearly and 

 attempted a real solution. His belief, that every per- 

 son desired to be born well and to live well if only 

 he knew how, appeals to one as an explicit statement 

 of eugenics. That is, if we could eliminate ignorance 

 and regulate our passions, society would advance to 

 an ideal state, and in his Republic, Plato sketches 

 such a polity in detail. The failure, for failure it was, 

 came from his inability to define what ignorance is or 

 how to check our passions. His ideal state is not only 

 impracticable, but if adopted would result in political 

 slavery. 



If we examine somewhat in detail what is being done 

 to make a science of eugenics and to apply it to regu- 

 late the affairs of men, we shall find that it is in no 

 sense a science and is singularly unfit to accomplish 

 such a purpose. 



In the first place there are no judges who are ac- 

 cepted, or likely to be accepted, as having any unanimity 

 of purpose or plan. Ethical systems, in the past, have 

 been born in the heart and mind of a single man, who 

 was recognized as one endowed with a peculiar power 

 of righteousness and whose life had become an ex- 



