OBJECT OF EUGENICS 293 
future generations! If there are people so debased 
that this argument does not appeal to them, surely 
such a crime against Society as a marriage of this kind is 
at least as open to coercive treatment as many of the 
acts which are treated as criminal by existing laws ! We 
elaborately prevent and punish paltry offences against 
property, and yet deliberate crimes like marriages 
between the Unfit are not recognized as criminal. 
Various suggestions for encouraging the multiplica- 
tion of the Fit have also been made. 
Mr. Sidney Webb, in his * Decline of the Birth-Rate,’ 
has suggested indiscriminate help to all parents, since 
this should afford encouragement to those who limit 
their families for prudential reasons and at the same 
time leave the thriftless where they are. But here 
it is necessary to point out that the existence of an 
unlimited population must of necessity bring want 
and misery to the lowest strata of society. The first 
object of Eugenics, Galton tells us, ‘is to check the 
birth-rate of the unfit, instead of allowing them to 
come into being, though doomed in large numbers to 
perish prematurely. The second object is the improve- 
ment of the race by furthering the productivity of 
the Fit by early marriages and healthful rearing of 
their children. Natural selection rests upon excessive 
production and wholesale destruction ; Eugenics upon 
bringing into the world no more individuals than can 
properly be cared for, and those only of the best 
stock.’ 
In the ideal socialistic community, in which, in 
addition to all the present varieties of civil servants, 
