124 BIOLOGY AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS 



but they are justifiable for the reason that they 

 inculcate a respect for life and a public habit 

 of humane treatment of unfortunates, charac- 

 teristics without which no race can afford to 

 be. But they are not unqualified blessings. 

 And when we examine them from the stand- 

 point of evolution, they seem to contain an 

 element of no small danger to the state. While 

 it is avowedly advantageous to the community 

 as a whole to treat with all reasonable care its 

 defective members, it is quite clear that this 

 class, so far as its traits are hereditary, is not 

 the class from which the future of society 

 should be recruited. It seems proper, therefore, 

 since our social institutions have counteracted 

 to a certain degree the effects of natural selec- 

 tion and have thus brought about conditions 

 that are unduly burdensome to the common- 

 wealth, if not really menacing to the welfare 

 of society itself, that the state should regulate 

 the reproductive activity of certain classes of 

 defective individuals. This can be done in two 

 ways : first, by educating all persons to a sense 

 of their social responsibilities in reproduction 

 and then relying upon them to act in accord- 

 ance with this training; and, secondly, where 

 such education is impossible, by sterihzing the 



