IS EUGENICS HALF-BAKED? 



ROBERT COOK 



Washington, D. C. 



The idea which I am attempting to present, under this perhaps question- 

 able title, has proved hard to formulate. Nevertheless, it seems important 

 enough to make the attempt. I trust that I may succeed in delivering it, 

 intangible as it is, in a form that will prove convincing to others. Dr. Mul- 

 ler has ably discussed some of the economic difficulties that lie in the way 

 of a eugenic program. The point that I hope to make clear is that other 

 elements much more intangible than the economic factors are of at least as 

 great importance. 



The title was suggested by the expressed and implied view encountered 

 rather often in semi-, quasi-, and non-scientific discussions of eugenics that 

 the whole idea of modifying the inborn qualities of the race is, or borders on 

 being, "half-baked." Where there is so much smoke, there must be a modi- 

 cum of combustible material, and I have tried to formulate some of the 

 reasons for this. My reasons for considering the present situation of eu- 

 genics unsatisfactory are based on the following facts: 



(1) To afford the slightest hope of an effective program of eugenic reform 

 in a democracy, eugenics must number its enthusiastic desciples at least 

 by the tens, and perhaps by the hundreds of thousands. 



(2) The enrollment of the Third International Eugenics Congress is less 

 than one thousand. (391 Editor's note.) The total enrollment of all the 

 existing societies devoted to furthering a eugenic program is probably less 

 than ten thousand. This is certainly not one tenth of one per cent of the 

 enrollment necessary to make really effective progress even a remote pos- 

 sibility. 



(3) This situation exists in spite of the fact that general acceptance of 

 existing theological creeds is much less enthusiastic today than at any time 

 in history, and that whether scientists like it or not, science is being drafted 

 as a new theology. 



(4) It will be agreed, I believe, that man is essentially a religious creature 

 who has a deep-seated craving for "causes" that are intellectually and emo- 

 tionally satisfying. He is not being given a theological diet containing the 

 necessary intellectual vitamins by the existing creeds. He is hungry for 



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