CHAPTER XXXIII 



THE POSSIBILITY AND PROSPECTS OF BREEDING A 



BETTER HUMAN RACE 



The suggestion that the human race might be improved by 

 the methods of the stock breeder is a very old one. Plato 

 advanced it in his Republic as the only practicable basis for 

 the production of a permanent and superior governing class 

 within the ideal state. The family had no place in his 

 scheme. 



It was his proposition that the best of both sexes should 

 be mated with each other and should be given every encour- 

 agement to the production of offspring, the young being 

 taken at birth into a state nursery and their identity lost so 

 far as the parents were concerned. Inferior persons, on the 

 other hand, were to be kept from reproducing, as far as pos- 

 sible, and their progeny destroyed. Realizing that such 

 favoritism would cause no end of trouble, if known, Plato 

 said that what was done should be kept a secret from all but 

 the magistrates themselves, and " an ingenious system of lots 

 must be contrived in order that inferior persons may impute 

 the manner in which couples are united to chance and not to 

 the magistrates." 



The eugenics system of Plato has probably never had a 

 full and fair trial, but if we may believe the account of 

 Plutarch, in his life of Lycurgus, something very like it 

 actually existed in Plato's time in Sparta, and it was prob- 

 ably the Spartan system that Plato had in mind. Sparta was 

 practically an armed camp, in which a military class ruled 

 with great severity the subject native races, holding them in 

 subjection by force of arms and compelling them to work the 

 land for the benefit of their conquerors. The Spartans sub- 

 jected themselves, both men and women, to the severest 

 discipline. Gymnastics and war were their exclusive occu- 



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