September 4, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



325 



largely, though of course by no means en- 

 tirely, bred from previous generations of 

 defectives. Now, it is not for us to con- 

 sider practical measures. As men of sci- 

 ence we observe natural events and deduce 

 conclusions from them. I may perhaps be 

 allowed to say that the remedies proposed 

 in America, in so far as they aim at the 

 eugenic regulation of marriage on a com- 

 prehensive scale, strike me as devised 

 without regard to the needs either of indi- 

 viduals or of a modem state. Undoubtedly 

 if they decide to breed their population of 

 one uniform puritan gray, they can do it 

 in a few generations; but I doubt if timid 

 respectability will make a nation happy, 

 and I am sure that qualities of a different 

 sort are needed if it is to compete with 

 more vigorous and more varied commu- 

 nities. Every one must have a preliminary 

 sympathy with the aims of eugenists both 

 abroad and at home. Their efforts at the 

 least are doing something to discover and 

 spread truth as to the physiological struc- 

 ture of society. The spirit of such organi- 

 zations, however, almost of necessity suffers 

 from a bias towards the accepted and the 

 ordinary, and if they had power it would 

 go hard with many ingredients of society 

 that could be ill-spared. I notice an omin- 

 ous passage in which even Galton, the 

 founder of eugenics, feeling perhaps some 

 twinge of his Quaker ancestry, remarks 

 that ' ' as the Bohemianism in the nature of 

 our race is destined to perish, the sooner it 

 goes, the happier for mankind. " It is not 

 the eugenists who will give us what Plato 

 has called divine releases from the common 

 ways. If some fancier with the catholicity 

 of Shakespeare would take us in hand, well 

 and good; but I would not trust even 

 Shakespeares meeting as a committee. Let 

 us remember that Beethoven's father was 

 a habitual drunkard and that his mother 

 died of consumption. From tlie genealogy 



of the patriarchs also we learn — what may 

 very well be the truth— that the fathers of 

 such as dwell in tents, and of all such as 

 handle the harp or organ, and the instructor 

 of every artificer in brass and iron — the 

 founders, that is to say, of the arts and the 

 sciences — came in direct descent from Cain, 

 and not in the posterity of the irreproach- 

 able Seth, who is to us, as he probably was 

 also in the narrow circle of his own con- 

 temporaries, what naturalists caU a nomen 

 nudum. 



Genetic research will make it possible 

 for a nation to elect by what sort of beings 

 it will be represented not very many genera- 

 tions hence, much as a farmer can decide 

 whether his byres shall be fuU of short- 

 horns or Herefords. It will be very sur- 

 prising indeed if some nation does not make 

 trial of this new power. They may make 

 awful mistakes, but I think they will try. 



"Whether we like it or not, extraordinary 

 and far-reaching changes in public opinion 

 are coming to pass. Man is just beginning 

 to know himself for what he is — a rather 

 long-lived animal, with great powers of 

 enjoyment if he does not deliberately forego 

 them. Hitherto superstition and mythical 

 ideas of sin have predominantly controlled 

 these powers. Mysticism will not die out: 

 for those strange fancies knowledge is no 

 cure; but their forms may change, and 

 mysticism as a force for the suppression of 

 joy is happily losing its hold on the modem 

 world. As in the decay of earlier religions 

 Ushabti dolls were substituted for human 

 victims, so telepathy, necromancy and other 

 harmless toys take the place of escha- 

 tology and the inculcation of a ferocious 

 moral code. Among the civilized races of 

 Europe we are witnessing an emancipation 

 from traditional control in thought, in art, 

 and in conduct which is likely to have pro- 

 longed and wonderful influences. Return- 

 ing to freer or, if you will, simpler con- 



