CONTROL OF HEREDITY: EUGENICS 425 



some way society must influence the race of 

 men at its source. This is the doctrine of 

 eugenics, which Galton defines as follows: 



The science of improving stock, which is by no 

 means confined to questions of judicious mating but 

 which, especially in the case of man, takes cog- 

 nizance of all influences that tend in however remote 

 a degree to give to the more suitable races or strains 

 of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over 

 the less suitable than they otherwise would have had. 

 ("Inquiries into Human Faculty.") 



Fortunately, or unfortunately, the methods 

 which breeders use cannot be rigidly applied in 

 the case of man. It is possible for breeders to 

 eliminate from reproduction all except the very 

 best stocks, and this is really essential if evolu- 

 tion is to be guided in a definite direction. If 

 only the very worst are eliminated in each gen- 

 eration, the standard of a race is merely main- 

 tained, but the more severe the elimination is 

 the more does it become a directing factor in 

 evolution. In the case of man, however, even 

 the most enthusiastic eugenicists have never 

 proposed to cut off from the possibility of re- 

 production all human stocks except the very 

 best, and if only the very worst stocks are thus 



