80 Lift atid Lettrnt of Fratwh (iaitou 



I venture to think that Galton hardly gave due weight to such a primary 

 human instinct as that of mating, if" he really thought that the niatiiigs of 

 li could be effectively discouraged or retarded by any existing agencies 

 short of another primal force — such a« natural selection — of ecjual intensity. 

 The possibility of separating marriage from birth, better realised to-day than 

 in the 'sixties, is of course a factor of great in)portance, but the general 

 influence of birth-control so far hsis been little short of disjustious from the 

 eugenic standpoint; it has tended to decrease the fertility of the intelligent 

 relatively to that of the unintelligent caste in the comnnniity. That a wider 

 knowledge of birth-control will produce the de^jired 'reproductive selection,' 

 as some eugenists apparently hold, is to assume that Ciiste B is intelHgent 

 and social enough to adopt control, and Caste A is altruistic enough to discard 

 it, even at the cost of that social eminence which is the natural reward of its 

 superior intelligence. Galton held that the improvement of the breed of 

 mankind presents no insuperable difficulty. 



"If ever}'body were to agree on the improvement of the race of man lieing a matter of the 

 very utmost importance, and if the theory of heretlitjiry transmission of qualities in men was 

 as thoroughly understood as it is in the case of our domestic animals, I see no absurdity in 

 supposing that, in some way or other, the improvement would Ije carried into effect" (p. 320.) 



May we not answer to that proposition: Undoubtedly true, but how bring 

 every one, nay even a majority of Caste B, to agree? To think it possible is 

 to assume they belong to Caste A ! Galton himself when he returned to 

 Eugenics forty yejtrs later seems more fully to have recognised the.se diffi- 

 culties, to have appreciated that, important as the problem is, its solution 

 will be long and difficult. That we must be content to create a 'religious' 

 feeling on the subject, to endeavour legislatively to strengthen the economic 

 position of Caste A so that it may multiply, and legislatively to restrict the 

 propagation of the worst membei-s of Caste B, its minority, the mentally 

 defective, the deaf and dumb, the blind and the deformed, when, as is njostly 

 the case, these characters are of the hereditary type. Not one all-embracing 

 remedy — certainly not birth-control — is the solution of the eugenic problem, 

 but a stejidy examination of all social schemes, philanthropic and legislative, 

 from the eugenic standpoint, and the bringing of an enlightened public 

 opinion to bear upon them, so that the main idea of Galton, a differential 

 fertility in favour of Caste A, is little by little brought into existence'. 



Galton in the paper under discussion emphasises the fact that he is not 

 dealing solely with ability; he is thinking of all "mental aptitudes" as well 

 jis of "genei-al intellectual power." He cites even mental and physical patho- 

 logicjd states as certainly hereditary ; cravings for drink, gambling, strong 

 sexual passion, proclivities to fraud, pauperism or crimes of violence, long- 

 evity and premature death go by descent; many forms of insanity, gout, 

 tendency to tuberculosis, heart disease, diseases of brain, liver and kidneys, 

 of ear and of eye, etc. In fact Galton outlines the vast field of hereditary 



' I have here (as Ualton does) only spoken of two divisions. Castes A and li, to show his 

 argmnent. Actually society is made of an infinity of grades for any character, and this Galton 

 fully mcognised. 



