HEREDITY IN RELATION 

 TO EUGENICS 



CHAPTER I 



EUGENICS: ITS NATURE, IMPORTANCE AND 



AIMS 



1. What Eugenics Is 



Eugenics is the science of the improvement of the hmnan 

 race by better breeding or, as the late Sir Francis Galton 

 expressed it: — ''The science which deals with all influences 

 that improve the inborn qualities of a race." The eugenical 

 standpoint is that of the agriculturaUst who, while recog- 

 nizing the value of culture, beUeves that permanent advance 

 is to be made only by securing the best "blood." Man is 

 an organism — an animal; and the laws of improvement 

 of corn and of race horses hold true for him also. Unless 

 people accept this simple truth and let it influence marriage 

 selection human progress wiU cease. 



Eugenics has reference to offspring. The success of a 

 marriage from the standpoint of eugenics is measiu'ed by 

 the nmnber of disease-resistant, cultivable offspring that 

 come from it. Happiness or unhappiness of the parents, 

 the principal theme of many novels and the proceedings of 

 divorce courts, has httle eugenic significance; for eugenics 

 has to do with traits that are in the blood, the protoplasm. 

 The superstition of prenatal influence and the real effects 



1 



