EUGENICS THE FUTURE OF MAN 



level out of which they rose would itself have 

 risen. We should still have demagogues, no doubt, 

 and a gallery for them to play to; but the gallery 

 would be a whit more discerning than the many- 

 headed of to-day. 



The first great need is that the thinker and the 

 student shall accept eugenics as a study worthy of 

 prosecution. Thereafter we must work at it with 

 diligence and patience ; and then, but not till then, 

 it must be " introduced into the national conscience, 

 like a new religion." 



To oppose eugenics with success, it must first 

 be demonstrated that the alleged facts of heredity 

 are not facts. If, however, they be admitted, it 

 inevitably follows that an improvement of the 

 human race, in accordance with certain ideals 

 which we all accept, is theoretically possible. 

 Here other objectors may add, "but, as a matter 

 of fact, impracticable." But no one will say, 

 however high he rate the potency of love and its 

 refusal to brook interference, that the marriage 

 of the insane and the criminal cannot be prevented ; 

 yet this would palpably be a eugenic measure. 

 Nor do I, for one, think so poorly of my fellows as 

 to disbelieve that no small number of them, when 

 the eugenic ideal has been fairly presented, will 

 be willing even to "strive and agonize" for an 

 object the superior or the peer of which has yet 

 to be named the intellectual and moral ennoble- 

 ment of our kind. 



