334 GENETICS 



7. WHO SHALL SIT IN JUDGMENT? 



In the practical application of a program of eu- 

 genics there are many difficulties, for who is qualified 

 to sit in judgment and separate the fit from the unfit? 



There are certain strongly marked characteristics 

 in mankind which are plainly good or bad, but the 

 principle of the independence of unit characters dem- 

 onstrates that no person is wholly good or wholly bad. 

 Shall we then throw away the whole bundle of sticks 

 because it contains a few poor or crooked ones? Is it 

 wise to burn the barn in order to kill the rats? 



The list of weakling babies, for instance, who were 

 apparently physically unfit and hardly worth raising 

 upon first judgment, but who afterwards became power- 

 ful factors in the world's progress, is a notable one and 

 includes the names of Calvin, Newton, Heine, Voltaire, 

 Herbert Spencer and Robert Louis Stevenson. 



Dr. C. V. Chapin recently said with reference to 

 the eugenic regulation of marriage by physician's 

 certificate: "The causes of heredity are many and 

 very conflicting. The subject is a difficult one, and 

 I for one would hesitate to say, in a great many cases 

 where I have a pretty good knowledge of the family, 

 where marriage would, or would not, be desirable." 



Desirability and undesirability must always be re- 

 garded as relative terms more or less undefinable. In 

 attempting to define them, it makes a great difference 

 whether the interested party holds to a puritan or 

 a cavalier standard. To show how far human judg- 

 ment may err as well as how radically human opinion 



