HEREDITY AND EUGENICS. 285 
be true, as Professor Dendy, for example, claims, that “ we can 
produce at will new combinations of selected characters, new 
forms of life which might never have appeared in a state of 
nature at all” (Journal “of Society of Arts, May 14, 1909), it is 
plainly time that we set ourselves in earnest on so noble an 
enterprise. Professor Dendy was dealing only with physical 
organisms, but, as we have seen, other workers have stepped 
over into the mental sphere and are for pushing forward there 
also, although at present their endeavours are mainly confined to 
influencing the future by the improvement of the physical 
stock. 
I am not able here to enter upon an examination of the very 
serious Claim that Society should undertake the conscious and 
purposive guidance of its own future course. I can only 
indicate the very grave character of the conflict of ideas and 
of sentiments to which it gives rise: a conflict so momentous 
that the future is bound to be very largely affected by the 
clashing oppositions which must arise between its advocates 
and its opponents. For example, we may all have fairly the 
same ideas as to what constitutes a “ better” physical frame, 
but can we say the same of the mental and moral character ? 
There are some who advocate the fostering of modesty, 
humility, and benevolence in character: but from the followers 
of Nietzsche we have protests that self-assertion, and the full 
employment of the energy of the strong in furthering their 
own development are higher ideals: which side is Society to 
take? Again, there are some who are convinced that anything 
approaching other-worldliness is superstitious and pernicious, 
while others find in it the very salt of the life of the soul. Is 
Society to suppress either one of these in favour of the other ? 
And are all the varieties of type of character to be reduced to 
uniformity ? or is Society in possession of scales of values in 
morals, in art, in emotional life, which are infallibly accurate in 
some absolute way, and therefore to be applied without ruth in 
the selective processes which are to be enforced? At present 
Society in its most advanced modern forms leaves wide scope 
for divergent ideals. If Eugenists confine themselves to 
positive measures for advanciny such ideals of character as they 
adopt, there is room for their action. It is the negative 
methods which give rise to most serious concern. 
For the methods of Negative Eugenics cannot be stated 
without raising the problem of personality: and when Eugenics 
is put forth solely on the basis of the heredity which is estab- 
lished from nature, it cannot expect to be welcomed on the part 
