DOMINANCE OF ECONOMICS OVER EUGENICS 143 



and the standards, the criteria of merit of the latter, will be accepted. 

 Naturally, those in power will idealize their own characteristics, particu- 

 larly those which brought them to dominance. In so far as they concerned 

 themselves about eugenics, would not most of them believe in the production 

 of bigger and better business men, who could see us through bigger and 

 better depressions? There would also be room for various accessory gentry, 

 such as sportsmen of the type who symbolized the predatory life, slap-stick 

 and slush artists to keep us harmlessly amused, and some safe and sane 

 scientists to invent better poison gas and to harmonize science with useful 

 superstition. And perhaps the most benighted elements could be cajoled 

 or coerced into developing themselves into more callous slaves, who could 

 work longer hours on a cheaper grade of beans. Not that this fantasy 

 would ever be realized, for, as I have shown, eugenics under our social 

 system cannot work. But that would unquestionably be the direction in 

 which the ideology of the dominant class would logically tend to lead 

 eugenics, if it could be made to work. Only the impending revolution in 

 our economic system will bring us into a position where we can properly 

 judge, from a truly social point of view, what characters are most worthy 

 of a man, and what will best serve to carry the species onward to greater 

 power and happiness in a united struggle against nature, and for the mutual 

 betterment of all its members. 



Galton could not be expected to have realized that the day was soon 

 coming when there would be fundamental economic and social changes, 

 which would utterly change the complexion of eugenic problems. But in 

 our day the writing on the wall is manifest, and they are fools who blind 

 themselves to it. Let us rather prepare with open eyes to face our new 

 problems. There is no use in arguing about the effects, in a hundred years 

 or more, of the continued differential reproduction of different classes, when 

 the very basis for the existence of these classes as such will soon be swept 

 away, and in place of the economic conditions imposed by the class struggle, 

 entirely new conditions will be substituted. Similarly, the present disputes 

 of eugenists about the fates of races will soon appear vain and beside the 

 point, when the economic and social reasons for the existence of the differen- 

 tial fertility of races, as well as for race prejudices, will have disappeared 

 with the general abolition of exploitation. True eugenics will then first 

 come into its own and our science will no longer stand as a mockery. For 

 then men, working in the spirit of cooperation, will attain the social vision 

 to desire great ends, and to judge of what is worthy. Then first, with 

 opportunities extended as equally as possible 'to all, will men be able to 

 recognize the best human material for what it is, and garner it from the 



