54 



REVIEW OF REVIEWS. 



March 1, 1913. 



circulation of the blood and lymph from which 

 the growing tissues extract the bricks and mortar 

 wherewith to add to their bulk. It is well known 

 that increased stature follows a prolonged con- 

 flnement upon a flat bed, and that a 6 ft. man 

 at breakfast is by no means a 6 ft. man at 

 dinner; a would-be recruit who is dangerously 

 near the border line can, by taking thought, add 



an inch to his stature if he lies perfectly flat for 

 some hours previous to the examination. Again, 

 it is significant that the marine, though lowest 

 in chest girth, is highest in stature of all 8er%-ice 

 ratings; now, the marine does not adopt ham- 

 mock life until a much later stage than the other 

 branches, moreover, he has long interregna in 

 barracks, when he sleeps on an ordinary bed. 



SOCIAL QUESTIONS. 



EUGENICS. 



According to Professor Karl Pearson, 

 " national eugenics is the study of 

 agencies under social control, that may 

 improve or impair the racial qualities of 

 future generations either physically or 

 mentally." 



In the Wo);/<m at Home some opin- 

 ions from prominent people on this in- 

 teresting science are given. The stud\' 

 of eugenics opens out a vast problem, 

 which must be faced sooner or later. 

 As a matter of fact, the " Mental De- 

 ficiency " Bill, which has called forth 

 such strong criticism, on the ground that 

 it interferes most dangerously with per- 

 sonal libert)', and equally strong sup- 

 port from those who believe it is a 

 national step in the right direction to 

 check the multiplication of the unfit, 

 may be right!}- regarded as a kind of 

 first fruits of the labour of these quiet, 

 scientific, unwear\-ing men and women 

 in the eugenics' laboratory. 



WHAT THE DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S THINKS. 



Dr. Inge believes that without some 

 such restriction as the Eugenics Society 

 proposes, our national prosperity will 

 be endangered. Criticising Mr. H. G. 

 Well's suggestion for dealing with the 

 industrial unrest, he writes : — " We need 

 an aristocracy, not of mone\', but of 

 character, who should exemplify the 

 modern and Western equivalents of 

 media?val chivalry and Japanese 

 Bushido. But, I must add, in my opin- 

 ion the cause of tension is the excessive 

 increase in the population of an over- 

 crowded country. The figures for 1909 

 are: Births, 1,148,118; deaths, 667,765. 

 And the unfortunate fact is that we are 

 breeding chiefly from inferior stocks. 

 As long as our social reformers and 

 agitators shirk these problems, I find it 



difficult to have much confidence in their 

 intelligence and honesty." 



MR. H. G. WELLS SEES TYRANNOUS 

 POSSIBILITIES. 



Mr. H. G. Wells is so prominent a 

 contributor to sociological science, that 

 his words carr\' weight. He, however, 

 refers to his former essay on the sub- 

 ject in " Anticipations." In that work 

 he says : — " At present the abyss is a 

 hotbed, breeding undesirable, and too 

 often fearfull}' miserable, children. 

 That is something more than a senti- 

 mental horror. Under the really very 

 horrible morality of to-da)- the spectacle 

 of a mean-spirited, undersized, diseased 

 little man, quite incapable of earning 

 even a decent living for himself, married 

 to some ignorant, underfed, ill-shaped, 

 plain and diseased little woman, and 

 guilty of the lives of ten or twelve ugly, 

 ailing little children, is regarded as an 

 extremely edifxing spectacle, and the 

 two parents consider their reproductive 

 excesses as giving them a distinct claim 

 upon less reckless and more prosperous 

 people. Benevolent persons throw them- 

 selves into a case of this sort with 

 peculiar ardour. . . . Yet so power- 

 ful is the suggestion of current opinion 

 that few people seem to see to-day what 

 a horrible and criminal thing this sort 

 of family, seen from the point of view 

 of social physiology, appears. . . . 

 Consider what it will mean to have per- 

 haps half the population of the world, 

 in every generation, restrained from or 

 tempted to evade reproduction ? This 

 thing, the euthanasia of the weak and 

 sensual, is possible. On the principle 

 that will probably animate the predom- 

 inant classes of the new time, it will be 

 permissible, and I have little doubt that 

 in the future it will be planned and 



