560 NATURE 
[AUGUST I, 1912 
one occasion, and partly because this branch .of in- 
quiry into human aftairs, being surrounded with many 
difficulties and having been much neglected in the 
past, seems now to be the one most in need of our 
efforts. Then, again, not only are the careers of all 
men largely influenced by their inborn qualities, but 
the surroundings which each man steps into at his 
birth undoubtedly in large measure depend—indeed 
in so far as they are under human control perhaps 
wholly depend—on the inborn qualities of those of | 
their ancestors and predecessors who were instru- 
mental in moulding that environment. Thus any 
steps which we may now take tending to improve the 
racial characteristics of the generations of the imme- | 
diate future will undoubtedly benefit the countless 
millions of the more distant future as regards the 
heritage they will receive at birth in the form, not 
only of inborn qualities, but also of improved sur- 
roundings. To endeavour both to study the laws of 
heredity and practically to apply the knowledge thus 
acquired to the regulation of our lives, seems, there- 
fore, to be a paramount duty which we owe to 
posterity. 
But when we embark on such a comprehensive 
study of life as is here suggested, it soon becomes 
apparent that the history of the world is not a tale 
of a continuous and uninterrupted advance. Nature 
seems to have been making innumerable experiments, 
of which many proved to be failures. New species 
have often arisen in the long bygone ages merely, it 
would seem, to become extinct and to leave no living 
traces behind them. New civilisations have arisen 
from time to time and have then died away, leaving 
the world little or no better for the progress thus 
temporarily made. It is true, no doubt, that, if we 
take a wide enough field of view, it does appear that 
the world has always been slowly advancing towards 
a better state of things, and the teachings of science 
need not shake the faith that some of us hold, that 
this advance is destined to continue in the future. 
But if we confine our view within a narrower horizon, 
and if we look merely at our own form of civilisation, 
the history of the past affords us no right whatever 
to prophesy a continued improvement in the lot of 
our race in the immediate future—no, not even the 
right to deny the possibility of the decadence of any 
nation. In fact, pride in our past achievements must 
not make us turn a deaf ear to the warnings which 
come from a study of the laws of heredity. Indeed, 
many circumstances brought to light in recent inves- 
tigations ought to force us to consider whether the 
progress of Western civilisation is not now at a 
standstill, and, indeed, whether we are not in danger 
of an actual retrograde movement. 
No doubt we are ignorant in many respects con- 
cerning the laws under which evolution has been 
operative in the past. We are especially ignorant 
about the final causes of variations in animals and 
plants, and also about the effects produced by environ- 
ment on the racial qualities of future generations; 
and there may therefore be forces now at work making 
for racial progress or decay of which we know 
nothing. There is, however, certainly one agency 
which has had a great influence in the past and of 
which much is now known, and that is natural selec- 
tion, or nature playing the part of the breeder of 
cattle in refusing to breed from inferior stocks. This 
progressive agency, by continually weeding out the 
unfit, has always tended to make living beings more 
and more able to seize the opportunities offered to 
them by their environments. And it seems as if this 
forward movement had gone on during all the long 
ages since life first appeared on earth until recent 
times, when by our social methods we have been doing 
NO, 2231, iVOL. 89] 
our best to prevent further progress being made by 
this same means. The unfit amongst men are now 
no longer necessarily killed off by hunger and disease, 
but are cherished with care, thus being enabled to 
reproduce their kind, however bad that kind may be. 
It is true that we cannot but glory in this saving of 
suffering; for the spirit which leads to the protection 
of the weak and afflicted is of all things that which 
is the best worth preserving on earth; and we can 
therefore never voluntarily go back to the crude 
methods of natural selection. But we must not blind 
ourselves to the danger of interfering with nature’s 
ways, and we must proclaim aloud that to give our- 
selves the satisfaction of succouring our neighbours 
in distress without at the same time considering the 
effects likely to be produced by our charity on future 
generations is, to say the least, but weakness and 
folly. rv 2 
The filling up of the blanks in our knowledge of 
the laws of life ought undoubtedly always to stand 
in the forefront of our programme. But our ignor- 
ance certainly does not forbid us to inquire whether 
our present knowledge is not sufficient to enable some 
steps to be taken with the view of safeguarding the 
race from the evil effects likely to be felt in the future 
as the results of our existing social policy. Certainly 
Sir Francis Galton, whose name we hope will ever 
in future be associated with the science of eugenics, 
a science to which he devoted the best years of his 
long life, declared with no uncertain voice that some- 
thing should be attempted without further delay. The 
necessity for some action now being taken can, indeed, 
no longer be denied on account of the absence of wit- 
nesses, non-scientific as well as scientific, in its 
favour. If we tell the breeders of cattle that their 
knowledge of the laws of heredity is so imperfect that 
it is useless for them either to attempt to avoid breed- 
ing from their worst stocks or to try only to breed 
from their best stocks, why, they would simply laugh 
at us; and the number of those who now see matters 
as regards mankind in the same light is steadily 
increasing, No doubt the paramount necessity of 
maintaininy a moral code introduces vast difficulties 
in the case of man which are unknown in the stock 
yard, and unquestionably the possibilities open to us 
are thus greatly limited. No doubt also our ignorance 
imperatively commands us to be cautious in our ad- 
vance. But stagnation is to be feared as well as 
error; and when we see good reason to believe that 
some step could now be taken tending to benefit future 
generations, both as regards their minds and their 
bodies, our fears must not be allowed to stand too 
much in the way of our actions. 
It must, however, be remembered thav it is not 
sufficient to satisfy the students of biology and 
sociology in order to ensure the adoption of the 
needed reforms; for the knowledge which has con- 
vinced experts must be widely disseminated before it 
can produce this result. Again to adopt the analogy 
of the weather, the knowledge of the meteorologist, 
even if it should make him a perfect prophet, would 
be useless for practical purposes if his forecasts merely 
remained on record in his laboratory for his own 
edification. The elaborate system of telegraphing the 
weather forecasts all over the country is essential if 
the sailor and the farmer are to have any chance of 
utilising them practically. In the same way, our 
knowledge of the laws of heredity, however perfect it 
may become, wil! continue to be of comparatively 
littie use as a method of ensuring the progress of 
mankind until it is not only widely known but actually 
incorporated in the moral code of the people. The 
man of science is right in regarding truth as a mis- 
tress to be sought for her own sake only, for in that 
yee 
