138 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



forms the best introduction to the general problem of the limits to 

 human racial improvement. I regret that time is lacking to describe 

 these studies of heredity within one " pure line." It is from such that 

 eugenics may hope to learn valuable lessons in economy of effort and 

 exactness of expectation. I have, however, already taken too much of 

 your time with the problems of the exact laws whereby good men have 

 good offspring and whereby breeding for strength, wisdom and virtue 

 may be most effective. 



In the few minutes that remain let me sum up what might perhaps 

 have been entitled the A B C of eugenics in the realm of mind. 



I have tried to show that, in intellect and character, men differ, by 

 original nature, in some sort of correspondence to the ancestry whence 

 they spring, so that by selection of ancestry the intellect and character 

 of the species may be improved ; to show also that injurious by-products 

 of such selective breeding are very easily avoided, if indeed they occur 

 at all; and, finally, to state some of the problems whose answers will 

 inform us of just how the original intellect and character of one man 

 does correspond with that of his ancestors, and so of just the best ways 

 to discover the best strains and to perpetuate them. 



I hope to have made it clear that we have much to learn about 

 eugenics, and also that we already know enough to justify us in provid- 

 ing for the original intellect and character of man in the future with 

 a higher, purer source than the muddy streams of the past. If it is our 

 duty to improve the face of the world and human customs and tradi- 

 tions, so that men unborn may live in better conditions, it is doubly our 

 duty to improve the original natures of these men themselves. For 

 there is no surer means of improving the conditions of life. 



It is no part of my office to moralize on these facts. But surely it 

 would be a pitiable thing if man should forever make inferior men as 

 a by-product of passion, and deny good men life in mistaken devotion 

 to palliative and remedial philanthropy. Ethics and religion must 

 teach man to want the welfare of the future as well as the relief of the 

 cripple before his eyes; and science must teach man to control his own 

 future nature as well as the animals, plants, and physical forces amongst 

 which he will have to live. It is a noble thing that human reason, bred 

 of a myriad unreasoned happenings, and driven forth into life by whips 

 made aeons ago with no thought of man's higher wants, can yet turn 

 back to understand man's birth, survey his journey, chart and steer his 

 future course, and free him from barriers without and defects within. 

 Until the last removable impediment in man's own nature dies childless, 

 human reason will not rest. 



