ii8 SCIENCE AND THE WAR 



put an end to its life in a painless manner. To 

 what enormities and dastardly agreements this 

 might lead need hardly be suggested ; and I am 

 quite confident that the members of the honour- 

 able profession of physic, to which I am proud to 

 belong, have no desire whatever for such a reform 

 of the law or of their ethics. Then we are told 

 in the same address (Bateson, British Association 

 Addresses in Australia, 1914) that on the whole 

 a decline in the birth-rate is rather a good thing, 

 and that families averaging four children are 

 quite enough to keep the world going comfort- 

 ably. The date of this address will be noted ; 

 and the fact that the war, which was then just 

 beginning, has probably caused its author and has 

 caused everybody else to see the utter futility of 

 such assertions. 



However, if we are to rear only four children 

 per marriage, and if we are to give the medical 

 man liberty to weed out the weaklings, it behoves 

 us to see that the children whom we produce are 

 of the best quality. Let us, therefore, hie to 

 the stud-farm, observe its methods and proceed 

 to apply them to the human race. We must 

 definitely prevent feeble-minded persons from 

 propagating their species. Within limits, that 

 is a proposition with which all instructed persons 

 would agree, though few, we imagine, would put 

 their opinions so uncharitably as the lecturer did : 

 " The union of such social vermin we should no 

 more permit than we would allow parasites to 

 breed on our own bodies." But we must go 

 farther than this, and introduce all sorts of 



