CHAPTER XXXVII 
THE PROMISE OF RACE CULTURE? 
CALEB WILLIAMS SALEEBY 
The best is yet to be. 
Tn its form of what we have called negative eugenics, the practice 
of our principle would assuredly reduce to an incalculable extent the 
amount of human defect, mental and physical, which each generation 
now exhibits. This alone, as has been said, would be far more than 
sufficient to justify us. A world without hereditary disease of mind 
and body would alone warrant the hint of Ruskin that posterity may 
some day look back upon us with “incredulous disdain.” Yet, assum- 
ing that this could be accomplished, as it will be accomplished, what 
more is to be hoped for? Must race-culture cease merely when it has 
raised the average of the community by reducing to a minimum the 
proportion of those who are thus grossly defective in mind or body ? 
Such disease apart, are we to be content, must we be content, with 
the present level of mediocrity in respect of intelligence and temper 
and moral sentiment? Can we anticipate a London in which the 
present ratio of musical comedy to great opera will be reversed, in 
which the works of Mr. George Meredith will sell in hundreds of 
thousands, whilst some of our popular novelists will have to find other 
means of earning a living? Can we make for a critical democracy 
which no political party can fool, and which will choose its best to 
govern it? Yet more, can we undertake, now or hereafter, to provide 
every generation with its own Shakespeare and Beethoven and 
Tintoretto and Newton? What, in a word, is the promise of positive 
eugenics? It is to this aspect of the question that Mr. Galton has 
mainly directed himself. Indeed he was led to formulate the princi- 
ples and ideals of the new science by his study of hereditary genius 
some four decades ago. Let us now attempt to answer some of these 
questions. 
The production of genius.—And first as to the production. of : 
genius. It is this, perhaps, that has been the main butt of the jesters 
who pass for philosophers with some of us today. It may be said 
1 From C. W. Saleeby, Parenthood and Race Culture (copyright 1909). Used by 
special permission of the publishers, Moffat, Yard, and Company. 
407 
