SCIENCE AND THE WAR 119 



restrictions on matrimony, until finally it comes 

 to be a matter to be arranged under rigid laws by 

 a jury of elderly persons all, we may feel perfectly 

 sure, " cranks " of the first water. 



In what milieu are their findings to take effect ? 

 It is very important to consider that. The 

 author from whom I have been quoting tells us 

 what we want to know. Man, he tells us, is " a 

 rather long-lived animal, with great powers of 

 enjoyment, if he does not deliberately forgo 

 them." In the past, we are told, " superstitious 

 and mythical ideas of sin have predominantly 

 controlled these powers." We have changed all 

 that now ; as the parent in Punch says to the 

 crying child by the seashore, " You've come out 

 to enjoy yourself, and enjoy yourself you shall ! J: 

 So we are to plunge into the whirlpool of eugenic 

 delights without any fear of that " bugbear of a 

 hell " which another writer congratulates us on 

 getting rid of. We can, it appears, enter upon 

 our eugenic experiment without a single moral 

 scruple to restrain us or a single religious restric- 

 tion to interfere with us. In this soil is the plant 

 to be grown, and the first weed to be eradicated 

 is that of the right of personal choice of a partner 

 for life, or for such other term as the law under 

 the new regime may require. Jack is to be torn 

 from weeping Jill, and handed over to reluctant 

 Joan, to whom he is personally displeasing and for 

 whom he has not the slightest desire, and handed 

 over because the Breeding Committee think it is 

 likely to prove advantageous for the Coming 

 Race. All that may be possible or may not 



