534 SOCIAL ASPECTS OF BIOLOGICAL RESULTS 



increasing the numbers of the effective, or negatively, in the 

 way of trying to reduce the multiplication of the unfit. Inquiry 

 into these subjects is comparatively new, discussion of them 

 is still rare, a superstitious attitude towards them is still very 

 common — we cannot tell what may come about when a con- 

 science relative to these things is developed, or in the wake of 

 great social changes. 



Meanwhile, convinced as we are as to the hopefulness of various 

 forms of eugenic selection, we cannot but enter a protest against 

 the impetuous recommendations of some who suggest methods 

 of surgical elimination to an extent that is almost grotesque. 



We would suggest the following cautions : 



(i) We are far from being omniscient in regard to variations. 

 Some deteriorative changes are well known, and history has 

 given its verdict against them. There are surely few who 

 would encourage the marriage of those suffering from syphilis, 

 marked tuberculosis, senility, diabetes, deaf-mutism, chronic 

 nephritis, haemophilia, organic heart-disease, contracted pelvis, 

 and the like, Every one agrees that there should be no breeding 

 from epileptics, paralytics, lunatics, and so on, but many other 

 variations are unknown quantities. The unpromising bud may 

 burst into a fair flower. Virchow's thesis of the pathological 

 origin of some variations is not to be lightly brushed aside. 

 There is an optimism of pathology. No one would propose 

 to encourage the breeding of doubtful variants on the off-chance 

 of an occasional genius, but the race owes much to weaklings 

 none the less. A man belonging to a family which has been 

 manufacturing cystin for three generations should not have 

 children — he would not pass the German marriage examination 

 —but in himself he may be a very valuable national asset. 

 Some of the lists given by the social surgeons are quaint in 

 their unpracticality ; thus one includes " a criminal taint "— 

 as if that were a rarity, or as detectable as deaf-mutism— and 

 another includes "pauperism." 



