DOMINANCE OF ECONOMICS OVER EUGENICS 139 



all along the line. Ideally, the rate should be a function of total genetic 

 worth, there being, from this point of view, no ultimate distinction between 

 negative and positive eugenics. However, the better the genes, especially 

 if they be rare, the more important is what happens to them. Since 

 Galton's time, absolutely no headway has been made in realizing this major 

 aim; in fact, it is widely claimed by eugenists themselves that just the oppo- 

 site process is increasingly operative, despite their own preachments. 



We might as well admit that the forces at work are quite beyond the 

 control of us as eugenists, in the society in which we live. For they are 

 fundamental economic forces. Galton lived too early to appreciate the 

 principle brought out by Marx that the practices of mankind, in any age, are 

 an expression of the economic system and material technique existing in that 

 age. He thought that they could be moulded willy nilly, from without, into 

 conformity with the abstractions of an idealist intellectual. But the organi- 

 zation of society today is such as to make the primary motive of action, 

 at least among the dominant section, the profit motive. This motive works 

 out in devious ways that are contradictory to the welfare of the race as a 

 whole, despite the fact that some of our modern philosophies, in a defense 

 reaction, try to rationalize the two ends into harmony. 



The profit system leaves little place for children. In general, they are 

 not profitable investments: their cost is excessive, but the dividends from 

 them are uncertain, they are like to depreciate in value, are non trans- 

 ferable, and they do not mature soon enough. One child may be necessary 

 for continuance of an estate, but each additional one weakens it. For the 

 great masses, who have no estates, each extra child commonly means more 

 intensified slavery for the parents, and an additional unit of human un- 

 happiness, in itself. And as the status of the middle class sinks, the parents 

 hesitate to rear children with lesser privileges than they. 



How much can eugenic considerations weigh in determining the actions 

 of people under these conditions? To what extent will they lead people of 

 greater genetic worth voluntarily to have four, five, or even more children 

 (remembering that at least more than three are on the average necessary to 

 a couple, if there is to be any increase at all)? Is it to be wondered at that 

 a census of eugenists themselves has disclosed an appalling failure to re- 

 produce themselves, despite the fact that they are maximally steeped in 

 their own doctrines? Under the conditions that exist today, we know very 

 well that it is a rare couple that has four or more children, except as a result 

 of ignorance, superstition, or accident, or unless, because of some unusual 

 circumstances, it has not yet been typically immersed in the full tide of our 

 profit system, but has rested in some back-eddy of provincialism, aristoc- 



