354 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



some nation does not make trial of this new power. They may make 

 awful mistakes, but I think they will try. 



Whether we like it or not, extraordinary and far-reaching changes 

 in public opinion are coming to pass. Man is just beginning to 

 know himself for what he is — a rather long-lived animal, with great 

 powers of enjoyment if he does not deliberately forgo them. Hitherto 

 superstition and mythical ideas of sin have predominantly controlled 

 these powers. Mysticism will not die out ; for those strange fancies 

 knowledge is no cure ; but their forms may change, and mysticism 

 as a force for the suppression of joy is happily losing its hold on the 

 modern world. As in the decay of earlier religions Ushabti dolls 

 were substituted for human victims, so telepathy, necromancy, and 

 otber harmless toys take the place of eschatology and the inculcation 

 of a ferocious moral code. Among the civilized races of Europe we 

 are witnessing an emancipation from traditional control in thought, 

 in art, and in conduct which is likely to have prolonged and wonder- 

 ful influences. Keturning to freer or, if you will, simpler conceptions 

 of life and death, the coming generations are determined to get more 

 out of this world than their forefathers did. Is it then to be 

 supposed that when science puts into their hand means for the 

 alleviation of suffering immeasurable, and for making this world a 

 happier place, that they will demur to using those powers ? The 

 intenser struggle between communities is only now beginning, and 

 with the approaching exhaustion of that capital of energy stored in 

 the earth before man began it must soon become still more fierce. 

 In England some of our great-grandchildren will see the end of the 

 easilj ;ucessible coal, and, failing some miraculous discovery of 

 available energy, a wholesale reduction in population. There are 

 races who have shown themselves able at a word to throw off all 

 tradition and take into their service every power that science has yet 

 offered them. Can we expect that they, when they see how to rid 

 themselves of the ever-increasing weight of a defective population, 

 will hesitate ? The time cannot be far distant when both individuals 

 and communities will begin to think in terms of biological fact, and 

 it behoves those who lead scientific thought carefully to consider 

 whither action should lead. At present I ask you merely to observe 

 the facts. The powers of science to preserve the defective are now 

 enormous. Every year these powers increase. This course of action 

 must reach a limit. To the deliberate intervention of civilization for the 

 preservation of inferior strains there must sooner or later come an end, 

 and before long nations will realize the responsibility they have assumed 

 in multiplying these " cankers of a calm world and a long peace." 



The definitely feeble-minded we may with propriety restrain, as 

 we are beginning to do even in England, and we may safely prevent 

 unions in which both parties are defective, for the evidence shows 

 that as a rule such marriages, though often prolific, commonly 

 produce no normal children at all. The union of such social vermin 

 we should no more permit than we would allow parasites to breed on 

 our own bodies. Further than that in restraint of marriage we ought 

 not to go, at least not yet. Something too may be done by a reform 



