CONCLUSIONS i8i 



with better knowledge we shall be able to create new and 

 durable types, combining desirable qualities which were 

 previously separated in different stocks, without at the 

 same time having to cope with the heavy burden of con- 

 taminated strains. 



We thus arrive at our final conclusion that the only means 

 of permanently raising the standard of the race consists 

 in the conscious and deliberate application of the method 

 of rational selection — i.e., selective breeding, or, as it has 

 been aptly named by Galton, " Eugenics." This becomes 

 the more imperative since the higher types exhibit, as can 

 be amply shown, a lessened fertility, often by their very 

 prudence and foresight voluntarily checking proliferation ; 

 while, on the other hand, the progress of humanitarian 

 sentiments tends largely to keep alive " the precipitate of 

 the socially unfit." Seeing that 25 per cent, of one 

 generation produces 50 per cent, of the next, " it is essential 

 for national fitness," to quote Pearson once more, " that 

 when we suspend the selective death-rate, we should see 

 to it that a selective birth-rate is introduced at the same 

 time." We only need to refer to the great number of 

 persons insane, imbecile, or morally depraved and criminal 

 — and they are not necessarily confined to any one stratum 

 of society — in order to recognize that there is scope for a 

 beginning at least on the negative side of Eugenics. 

 Furthennore, a large field of practical work is open with 

 regard to disease. Without contending that we should 

 give up the fight against disease by a vigorous sanitary 

 campaign against filth and foul air, and should rather weed 

 out consumptive man than the bacillus of consumption 

 (a somewhat wild suggestion made against the scientific 

 adherents of Eugenics), it remains at the same time an 

 imperative duty, as long as disease exists, to create what 

 may be called a moral conscience against propagating 

 inheritable diseases or predispositions to such. We cannot 

 do better than enumerate in full the eugenic rules given by 

 Professor Thomson : 



