I 



Karl 11 Aiif/ifnjjo/of/inil /{imarr/uti 110 



civiliHiitinn, vainly tritxi uh yet. "f wliich th«> notion of p<TH<>nal pro|K)rty in not the foun' •••■■•• '"it 

 w)iich nro, in honent truth, ropuhlifiin iind c(M>pcriitive, the g<io<l of thecuniuiunity Ix 'ly 



a more vivid dcHirtt thiin that of sflfaj{j{™"'l>'*«'"'«-i>t or any otli<>r niotivo whntx'Vrr. i m^ m a 

 Btaguwliiclithx luitnun rncv iHundouhttHllydcMtini-tl Nooncror liitorto rttnc-h, hut which thiMh-ticient 

 moral ;;ift.s of cxiHtinff niccs rcmh-r thorn iricaj)ahlo of attaining- It iM the ol)viouH oourm* of 

 int«'liij,'fnt men — and I venture to say it should \>e their reli({ious duty- — to advance in the 

 dire(^tion whither Nature Ih di4ermined they shall go; that is towards the improveniont of their 

 nice. Thither she will assure<lly goad them with a ruthless arm if they lumg liaok, and it is of 



no avail to kiek against the pricks For my part, I cling to the idea of a conscious soliilarity 



in Nature, and of its lal)orious advance under many restrictions, the Whole lieing conscious of 

 us ttMiiporarily detache<l individuals, hut wo being very iu)pci-fectly and darkly conscious of the 

 Whole. Ho this as it may, it becomes our Injunden duty to conform our steps t« the |>aths which 

 we recognise to Iw detined, as those in which sooner or later we have to go. We must, thert'fore, 

 try to render our individual aims sul>onlinato to those which lead to the improvement of the 

 race. The enthusiasm of humanity, strange as the doctrine may sound, has to Ije directed 

 primarily to the future of our race, and only sticondarily to the well-lxnng of our ii-u. 



The ants who, when their nest is disturlnxl, hurry away each with an uninf' iig 



egg, pickinl up at hazard, not oven its own, but none the less precious to it, ha\c their in.stincts 

 curiously in accordanct* with the real requirements of Nature. So far as we can interpret her, 

 we read in the clearest letters that our desire for improvement of our race ought to rise to the 

 force of a [wi-ssion ; and if othei-s interpret Nature in the same way, we may expect that at some 

 future time, perhi»j)s not very remote, it may come to be looked ujM)n as one of the chief religious 

 obligations. It is no absurdity to expect, that it may hereafter bo pre»iche<l, that while helpfulness 

 to the weak, and sympathy with the suffering, is the natural form of outpouring of a merciful and 

 kindly heart, yet that the highest action of all is to provide a vigorous, national life', and that 

 one practical and effective way in which individuals of feeble constitution can show mercy to 

 their kind is by celilmcy, lest they should bring Ijoings into existence whose race is predoomed to 

 destruction by the laws of Nature. It may come to be avowed as a paramount duty, to anticipate 

 the slow and stublKjrn processes of natural selection, by endeavouring to breed out feeble consti- 

 tutions, and petty and ignoble instincts, and to brei^d in thase which are vigorous and noble and 

 social." (pp. 118-20.) 



I have given nearly the whole of this lengthy passage hectiu.se it contains 

 the whole gospel of eugenics — then termed by Galton (p. 119) ' viriculture.' 

 The world, in a crude sort of way, looks upon Galton as a 'eugenist,' but 

 hardly knows what the word means, still less recognises why it was a re- 

 ligious faith to him. Of his pantheism, based upon tlie solidarity of nature 

 as evidenced by the continuity of the germ-plasm, it realises nothing; that 

 he wanted race-improvement in order that men might l>e good socialists in the 

 highest sense — which their lack of intelligence at present denies them — has 

 scarcely been whispered. Even now if I characterised Galton as a freethink- 

 ing pantheist, who desired to reach a socialistic state by breeding supennen 

 for intellect — and every word of this characteristic is a literal fact — I should 

 be accused by the bulk of his acquaintances of misrepresentation, and by 

 many of his friends of sensationalism, the explanation being, that Galton 

 wrote far more than he spoke of his philosophy of life, while the majority of 

 men talk more of their heroes than they read of their written thougnts; 



' And again p. 123: "Wo shall come to think it no hardhearteilness to favour the perpetua- 

 tion of the stronger, wi.ser and more moral races, but shall conceive ourselves to be carrying out 

 the obvious intentions of Nature by making our social arrangements conducive to the improve- 

 ment of their race." I cannot but believe that Nietische took his doctrine of scorn and contempt 

 for the feeble — with the cynicism (I should like to write the 'sardony') of a social invert — from 

 Qalton. 



