298 EUGENICS 



the State purify itself by aid of crude natural selection. 

 We see pain and suffering only to relieve it, without 

 inquiry as to the moral character of the sufferer, or as 

 to his national or racial value. And this is right. No 

 man is responsible for his own being ; and nature and 

 nurture, over which he had no control, have made him 

 the being he is, good or evil. But here science steps 

 in, crying, " Let the reprieve be accepted, but next 

 remind the social conscience of its duty to the race. 

 No nation can preserve its efficiency unless dominant 

 fertility be associated with the mentally and physically 

 fitter stocks. The reprieve is granted, but let there 

 be no heritage if you would build up and preserve a 

 virile and efficient people/ 



Signs are not wanting that a few thoughtful people 

 outside the ring of scientific enthusiasts are beginning 

 to take a serious interest in the questions of race- 

 improvement and national efficiency. But before any 

 real progress is likely to be made, a knowledge of the 

 fundamental facts of heredity must have become very 

 much more widely distributed than is at present the 

 case. Valuable work is being done in this direction 

 by the Eugenics Education Society, the object of which 

 is to popularize and carry into practical effect the idea 

 of national Eugenics, as defined at the beginning of 

 the present chapter. The intention of this society to 

 make known generally the fact that biological principles 

 apply to the production of human beings is one which 

 cannot be too highly estimated. Since this is pre- 

 cisely the object with which the present sketch has been 

 added to a work otherwise almost purely theoretical 



