THE ARBITER OF ETHICS 257 



passions which he knows to be injurious to him- 

 self or to those nearest and dearest to him. What 

 more ineffective system of ethics could be imagined 

 than euthenics, which bases its claim on the plea that 

 a man should so live that the race may move forward 

 to some unknown goal of perfection? And he is not 

 even to have the satisfaction of seeing the progress of 

 the race, as little improvement is to be expected for a 

 hundred or so of generations. 



The average man is too busy with his own con- 

 cerns even to consider those of a distant posterity, of 

 whose needs he can know nothing. He is convinced 

 that future generations cannot be controlled by him and 

 that they must solve their own problems; and he is 

 also conscious that he is not altogether degenerate 

 although he is the result of a long line of careless an- 

 cestors, heedless of him and ignorant of eugenics and 

 euthenics. However traits of heredity may affect 

 immediate posterity, it must be recognized as a general 

 principle that the race has attained a normal develop- 

 ment, which can change but slightly and very slowly ; 

 disease and vice must disappear just as abnormal excel- 

 lences must decay. We find but little that is essentially 

 different in the moral character of ourselves and that 

 of persons who formed the ancient civilizations. The 

 eugenists forget that the great majority of all men, and 

 a still greater majority of those of influence, lead for 

 the most part decent, law-abiding lives, and this quiet 



