Eugenics as a Creed and the Last Decade of Galton's Life 269 



the following words, which could hardly have been better expressed by Galton 



himself: 



"It seems that the prevalent opinion that almost anybody is good enough to marry is 

 chiefly due to the fact that in this case the cause and the effect, marriage and the feebleness 

 of the offspring, are so distant from each other that the near-sighted eye does not distinctly 

 perceive the connection between them. Hence no censure is passed on him who marries from 

 want of foresight or want of self-restraint, and by so doing produces offspring doomed to misery. 

 But this can never be right. Indeed there is hardly any other point in which the moral 

 consciousness of civilised man still stands in greater need of intellectual training than in its 

 judgments on cases which display want of care or foresight. Much progress has in this respect 

 been made in the course of evolution, and it would be absurd to believe that men would for 

 ever leave to individual caprice the performance of the most important and, in its consequences, 

 the most far-reaching function which has fallen to the lot of mankind." (pp. 24-5.) 



It is worth while giving these expressions of opinion, because they 

 indicate that Galton was beginning to make an impression, and on those 

 whom it was worth while to impress. The purpose of Galton's lecture 

 was to combat the objection often raised against Eugenics*, that human 

 nature would never brook interference with the freedom of marriage. Galton 

 wished to appeal from armchair criticism to actual facts. He stated that 

 it is no unreasonable assumption to suppose that, when Eugenics is so 

 well understood that its lofty objects become generally appreciated, they 

 will meet with some recognition both from the religious sense of the people 

 and from its laws. " The question to be considered is how far have marriage 

 restrictions proved effective when sanctified by the religion of the time, by 

 custom and by law." Galton next proceeds to show how monogamy and 

 polygamy have each received religious sanction and religious condemnation 

 in their place and turn; how celibacy has been a sin and a state of holiness t. 

 If such customs do not arise from any natural instinct but from considerations 

 of social well-being, may we not conclude that under pressure of worthy 

 motives, limitations to freedom of marriage may hereafter be enacted by 

 law or custom for eugenic purposes ? Galton then turns to endogamy and 

 exogamy, which in multitudes of communities have been enforced even under 

 the severest penalties; he refers to the Levirate with its limitation on the 

 widow's choice — he might have referred to the funeral pyre of the Hindoo 

 widow — and to the strange custom adumbrated by the tale of Ruth and Boaz. 



* To this word in the opening section is a footnote : " Eugenics may be defined as the 

 science which deals with those social agencies that influence mentally or physically the racial 

 qualities of future generations." This is not yet the definition of the University Committee, and 

 a singular history attaches to the footnote. Mr Howard Collins read this paper in manuscript, 

 and criticised the wording of the definition of the term " Eugenics " ; and in a letter to Calton 

 of Jan. 15, 1905, he proposed that it should read as follows : " Eugenics is defined as the science 

 of those social agencies which influence mentally, morally and physically, the racial qualities 

 of future generations." Galton adopted this wording, striking out, however, the word "morally." 

 This indicates how far he was from accepting Sir Arthur Kiicker's modification of the University 

 Committee's definition. 



t Galton enlarges a good deal on the celibacy of mediaeval Christianity and opines that 

 pious efforts as great as those which founded monasteries and nunneries might under religious 

 influence be directed so as to fulfil an exactly opposite purpose, thus homes or colleges might 

 be endowed for young married couples from stock of high civic worth : see our p. 78 and the 

 account of "Kantsay where" later in this chapter. 



