SCIENCE AND THE WAR 121 



Orders deprives the State of a number of pre- 

 sumably excellent parents, " if monastic orders 

 and institutions are to continue, they should be 

 open only to the eugenically unfit." l If the 

 religious call is not to be permitted to dispense 

 a man or woman from entering the estate of 

 matrimony, it may be assumed that nothing else, 

 except an unfavourable report from the com- 

 mittee of selection, will do so. And, further, as 

 the one object of all this is to bring super-children 

 into the world, we must also assume that those 

 who fail in this duty will find themselves in peril 

 of the law. 



Surely what has been set down shows that what- 

 ever scientific reputation the writers in question 

 possess, and it is undeniably great, it has not 

 equipped them, one will not merely say with 

 moral or religious ideas, but with an ordinary 

 knowledge of human nature. It has not equipped 

 them with any conception apparently of political 

 possibilities ; and it has left them without any 

 of that saving salt, a sense of humour. Like 

 Huxley, they have started out to give opinions 

 without first having made themselves familiar 

 with the subject on which they were to deliver 

 judgment. 



It is perhaps little to be wondered at that the 

 intense preoccupation which the study of science 

 entails should tend to induce those whose atten- 

 tion is constantly fixed on Nature to imagine that 

 from Nature can be drawn not only lessons of 



1 Conklyn, Heredity and Environment in the Development 

 of Men. Princetown University Press, 1915. 



