576 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1034 



compulsion is to overlook that behind the 

 tangible evils of drink there lies a weak- 

 ness of human character. It is but the 

 part of foresight to look to influences that 

 strengthen self-control rather than to re- 

 move some particular temptation. The 

 latter action substitutes the restraint from 

 without for the far more ennobling and en- 

 during restraint from within. Man is too 

 much of an imitator not to have his indi- 

 vidual character deeply modified by en- 

 vironmental influences. The force of a 

 good and cheerful example will accom- 

 plish more than preaching and artificial 

 restraint. All can not be saved, but it 

 were better that some go to the wall than 

 that all sicken in that stifling air of virtue 

 by act of legislature. 



Almost daily some new "crusade" is 

 chronicled. Some are directed against real 

 evils, others are trivial and still others 

 vicious. These reform movements, so far 

 as they seek to regulate the private life of 

 individuals, show weaknesses of the same 

 kind as those just cited and probably none 

 of them has the justification that the drink 

 evil affords. More sound thought and less 

 hasty action is needed. Let there be less 

 running to the legislature for laws that 

 make new crimes of venial offences, and 

 laws that extend the definition of serious 

 crimes to include lesser transgressions. 

 Undue severity of punishment, instead of 

 stopping crime and immorality, merely 

 brings the law into discredit. "If we in- 

 quire into the cause of all human corrup- 

 tions," wrote Montesquieu in "The Spirit 

 of Laws, " "we shall find that they proceed 

 from the impunity of criminals, and not 

 from the moderation of punishments. Let 

 us follow nature, who has given shame to 

 man for his scourge; and let the heaviest 

 part of the punishment be the infamy at- 

 tending it."^ If this be true for major 



6 Op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 96. Nugent 'a translation. 



crimes, and the Romans at least found that 

 it was, how much more does it hold for those 

 very natural offences against good behavior 

 that moral zealots seek to punish with se- 

 vere penalties. But, I fear, such wisdom 

 is a long way off from general recognition 

 in this country, for, as Mr. Bryce per- 

 tinently remarks, "For crotchet-mongers 

 as well as for intriguers there is no such 

 paradise as the lobby of a state legisla- 

 ture." Lest this seem far away from sci- 

 ence, remember that the method of science 

 is based on experience. Shall we throw all 

 past experience to the winds in our mad 

 dash for the millennium? 



The youngest reform movement, as yet 

 but scarcely bom, the one which all biolo- 

 gists must be watching with parental solic- 

 itude, is eugenics. But this youngster, too, 

 needs protection from its overzealous 

 friends. Already the enthusiasts are de- 

 manding legislation, unmindful of how 

 little information we really have to base it 

 on, and oblivious of the vast complica- 

 tions of a problem which touches the 

 very vitals of our social and our animal 

 organization. For the present the prac- 

 tical application of eugenics to man 

 would best be left to that minority of 

 thoughtful and rather unimpulsive per- 

 sons who are willing to experiment upon 

 themselves and their descendants. On the 

 other hand, we need not look upon the 

 widest extension of this practise with any 

 misgiving. The eugenic sanction, even if 

 it does require the subordination of the 

 impulse of the moment to future expecta- 

 tions, is far less artificial than many of the 

 restraints imposed by our present social 

 conventions.*^ In considering the motives 

 that may impel mankind in the future to 

 more general practise of eugenics, it does 

 not seem likely that young men and wo- 



6Havelock Ellis, "The Task of Social Hy- 



