244 TABOO AND GENETICS 



situation it must utilize its psychological 

 insight to remedy conditions which are ob- 

 viously dysgenic and detrimental to the welfare 

 of the race. If the egoistic and highly 

 individualized modern man and woman are 

 induced to sacrifice personal ambitions in the 

 interests of reproduction, for instance, it will 

 only be because society has learned to turn those 

 same egoistic impulses to its own ends. This 

 will never be accomplished by the forces of 

 tradition or by any such superimposed method 

 of control as conscription for parenthood. There 

 is too much of a spirit of freedom and individual 

 liberty in the social mind to-day for any such 

 measure to meet with success. The same spirit 

 of freedom which formerly burst the bonds of 

 superstition and entered into the world of 

 science is now as impatient of restraint of its 

 emotional life as it formerly was of restriction 

 of its intellectual search for the truth. 



Therefore society can no longer depend upon 

 taboo standards crystallized into institutiona- 

 lized forms as a means of control. It must 

 appeal to more rational motives if it expects to 

 have any degree of influence over its most 

 intelligent and energetic members. Only when 

 the production of eugenic offspring brings the 

 same social approval and reward that is meted 

 out for other activities will the ineradicable 

 and irrespressible egoistic desires that now 



