Eugenics as a Creed and the Last Decade of Gallon's Life 403 



Those who preached salvation for men through good works, never thought 

 of adding that the object of such charity must not be an enemy of society. 

 To give to a beggar increased the grace at the disposal of believers, even if 

 the mendicant's poverty and sores were the product of his own licence. Then 

 came those who taught that charity must be organised and due inquiry made 

 as to the character and needs of the recipient. This destroyed the spontaneity 

 of charity, the desire to do at once and easily a good work, and reap imme- 

 diately that feeling of grace acquired which has descended traditionally from 

 the older faith. Lastly, we have Galton's view of philanthropy, propounding 

 as it does a third view of charity : seek the family of civic worth, the in- 

 dividuals of eugenic stock and confine your help, " whenever help is really 

 needful," to these alone. Our statesmen 



" should regard such families as an eager horticulturalist regards beds of seedlings of some rare 

 variety of plant, but with an enthusiasm of a far nobler and more patriotic kind. For since it 

 has been shown elsewhere that about 10 per cent, of the individuals born in one generation 

 provide half the next generation, large families that are also eugenic may prove of primary 

 importance to the nation and become its most valuable asset." (p. 76.) 



Thousands of pounds are willed every year to charities, not infrequently 

 without knowledge of, or inquiry into the social value of the institutions 

 benefited; it is the old seeking for grace by good works regardless of the 

 recipient. Yet not even mere hundreds of pounds are left by testators, as by 

 Gallon, to increase our knowledge of what really makes for national efficiency, 

 or to put into practical use the knowledge so acquired. Year by year the 

 property and endowment of charities, and the number of those living upon 

 them, some good, many worthless, few really under national control, increase 

 to an alarming extent. 



Let us turn to the historical source of the Reformation and remember what 

 happened when unthinking belief in "good works" poured into the lap of 

 the Church endowments and estates for the support of masses of men, who 

 did little to increase the efficiency of the nation ; in Galton's sense of the 

 words, many monastic bodies were decadent communities — indolent, slouch- 

 ing, conspicuously slack. The danger to-day appears to come from a different 

 side, but the false principle which is at work is the same, and we can study 

 the analogy with profit. 



Galton's second paper is entitled : " Note on the Effects of small and 

 persistent Influences*." Our author was always urging that small but 

 repeated influences will like drops of water ultimately wear away the hardest 

 rock. He preached it to his too impatient followers, who with less insight into 

 the workings of Nature, and into the religious and social evolution of man- 

 kind, largely failed to be impressed by it ; some were eager for immediate eugenic 

 legislation, when Galton would have had them give repeated if almost 

 impalpable shoves at the right instant to the swing of public opinion. It was 

 in the persistent action of small influences that Galton trusted for a revolu- 

 tionary change in public opinion with regard to Eugenics. He refers as an 

 analogous illustration to cases in which travellers are deflected from their 



* Eugenics Revieiv, Vol. I, pp. 148-9. 



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