NURTURE VERSUS NATURE 



should take place, through establishing the nat- 

 ural affinity of weak for strong and of strong for 

 weak, just referred to. 



It is matter of everyday observation that 

 women of a masculine type are attracted to more 

 or less effeminate men; and, contrariwise, that 

 men of the most virile type are drawn to women 

 who are the embodiment of femininity. And the 

 most coldly logical student of scientific eugenics 

 must applaud these inherent preferences. 



In a word, then, it may be said that the new 

 science of eugenics does not come forward as a 

 revolutionary force, but only as a supplementary 

 force. In general, the study of scientific heredity 

 has sufficed to show the logicality of spontaneous 

 love, rather than to suggest its illogicality. But 

 this verdict must be modified to the extent of urg- 

 ing that it may be possible for the student of 

 heredity to point out individual instances in which 

 a scientific analysis reveals impediments to what 

 otherwise might be a thoroughly eugenic and de- 

 sirable mating. 



In other words, the province of eugenics at the 

 present stage of its development is, as has been 

 suggested in an earlier chapter, not so much to 

 determine whom an individual should marry as 

 to show, on occasion, whom he or she should not 

 marry. The definite implications and applica- 

 tions of this principle will appear as we proceed. 

 A clew to them is given in the statement that eu- 

 genics is recognized as having two quite different 

 aspects, a negative and a positive aspect. 



[309] 



