EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



their mother be " a perfect woman, nobly planned." 

 Similarly your true altruist, conscious of some 

 grave physical flaw likely to be perpetuated, will 

 renounce any possibility of satisfying even the 

 noble desire of parenthood. 



Certain objectors seem to imagine, despite the 

 unequivocal language of Mr. Galton, that he wishes 

 to turn out all men on one pattern ; in short, that 

 this foremost student of heredity does not know 

 the value of variation! Further, they say that 

 no one is agreed as to what is best; some would 

 wish all men to be scientists, others long for an 

 elevation of aesthetic culture alone. Mr. Wells 

 objects that the average criminal is probably 

 superior in racially valuable qualities to the aver- 

 age judge; and since no one is agreed as to what 

 we want, we need waste no time in trying to ob- 

 tain it. 



But hear Mr. Galton: "Postulating existing so- 

 cial groups [artist, financier, biologist, journalist, 

 and what not], and existing moral criteria, eugenics 

 aims at the reproduction of the best specimens of 

 individuals in each of those groups in which the 

 characteristic activity is not demonstrably anti- 

 social, as in criminals." We want as much variety 

 as ever, but we want the best possible of each 

 variety. The practice of eugenics would thus 

 raise the average quality of a nation to that of its 

 better moiety of the present day : men of an order 

 of ability (in a thousand spheres) which is now 

 rare would become more frequent, because the 



