BIOLOGY IN ITS WIDER ASPECTS 1327 



living observers and interpreters, and of tainted families especially, 

 Sir Arthur Mitchell; who pointed out, for humanity, what shepherds 

 know even among their best breeds, and of picked parentage, that 

 there may still appear what in Scotland they call a "shargar", a 

 miserable deteriorate or degenerate. And in our own experience of 

 life, have we not each been once and again surprised and perplexed 

 by such occurrences ? Are such cases simply reappearances of some 

 long-latent defective strain — or are they new ones; and if so from 

 what causes? In sheep this worst lamb is often youngest; and in 

 humanity the like sometimes too; yet at times the youngest may 

 develop best of all. Here there are lines for fuller investigation, each 

 far from easy. 



EUGENICS AND EUGAMICS.— Eugenics, as an advancing 

 branch of science, is not getting on so badly; but how among 

 the great public to whom it refers and seeks to appeal ? They are 

 as yet mainly indifferent : but all sciences, especially social science, 

 yet biology also, are too much in the like case. What is wrong? 

 In our own way, we are all out to be fishers of men, but we are not 

 catching them, or at most a few here and there; but never a net is 

 full as we would desire. The first feeling and tendency is to blame 

 our public : but the more reflective angler learns that if he does not 

 catch his fish, there is no use blaming them; it is himself he has to 

 criticise. His place or time may not be suitable ; and his bait or fly 

 not the right ones; his handling may be at fault, and so on. And the 

 like for every art, and its science too. Yet the fisher has also to go back 

 to the study of the fish, and look into their ecology to find his clue. 

 What then of the public, on whom the eugenist would fain act ? 

 Are they not often alarmed rather than attracted by some of his 

 proposals, the more they hear of them? Do they not feel a certain 

 harshness in the presentment of some of its teachings? And still 

 more in those of the bold American eugenists, who have brought 

 sterilisation into practice in their States? Do they not feel some- 

 thing of what Bertrand Russell says right out, that "if eugenics 

 reached the point where it could increase desired types, it would 

 not be the types desired by present-day eugenists that would be 

 increased, but rather the types desired by the average official". 

 And if eugenists doubt this, let them explain more fully on what 

 kind of State they would found their hopes, and see whether it be 

 not more like what a new Kaiser might give us, rather than any 

 order admitting of human freedom. How often has selection "for 

 reasons of state" been Herodian; but never as yet Magian. Too 

 much, so far, the popular impression of eugenists (though unjustly 

 so far as its best expositions are concerned, as from Major Darwin's 

 balanced statement or Dr. Saleeby's glowing one) is well nigh to 

 discouragement of that betterment of the environment, in wealth 



