THE DOMINANCE OF ECONOMICS OVER EUGENICS 



H. J. MULLER 



University of Texas 



It is now about fifty years since Francis Galton promulgated the doctrine 

 of Eugenics. It has become a highly popular subject for parlor talk and 

 best sellers. Yet, aside from the sterilization of imbeciles, we are today 

 further than ever from putting eugenic principles into actual operation. 



That imbeciles should be sterilized is of course unquestionable, but we 

 should not delude ourselves concerning the importance of the benefits 

 thereof. Following Haldane, we may recall the fact that if (as is commonly 

 claimed) most imbecility is due to the same recessive gene, then the ster- 

 ilization of all imbeciles in every generation would not reduce their number 

 to half until about ten generations had elapsed, and subsequent elimination 

 would be even slower. And after all, actual imbecility represents only a 

 very small part of the hereditary weaknesses which should be eliminated, 

 and this particular defect is not as onerous as many others, firstly because 

 imbeciles do not suffer from the consciousness of their own defect, and sec- 

 ondly because it is not inhumane to segregate them into institutions. Here 

 they constitute much less of an economic and psychological burden on their 

 fellow men than they would in the community at large, where most lesser 

 defectives must remain. 



The attack on imbecility was to have been only a first step, yet eugenists 

 have in the main stuck at that >point. The major task of eugenics is not 

 to get rid of this or that specified and highly conspicuous abnormality, such 

 as total hereditary deafness or blindness, existing in relatively rare in- 

 dividuals who might conceivably be subjected, as a class, to outright ster- 

 ilization. An individual's total genetic worth is a resultant of manifold 

 characteristics, weighted according to their relative importance, positively 

 or negatively, for society. It is a continuous function of all of these com- 

 bined, so that there is no hard and fast line between the fit and the unfit, 

 based upon one or a few particular genes. The vital thing, for the popula- 

 tion at large, is a relatively low rate of multiplication of those who are, in 

 general, physically and mentally less well endowed, without a decrease in 

 the total size of the population, or, to put the same thing conversely, a 

 relatively high multiplication rate of the genetically sounder germ plasm, 



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