Eugenics

“ Only when we begin to think and work continuously at eugenics is its range revealed. The present volume is a mere introduction to the principles of the subject: the full elucidation of its practice is a problem for generations to come. Nor is it easy to set logical limits to our inquiry. We may say that eugenics deals with conceptions: and that the care of the expectant mother is outside its scope: but of what use is it to have a eugenic conception if its product is thereafter to be ruined by, for instance, the introduction of lead into the mother's organism? ”

“ The problem of eugenics is to make such legal, social and economic adjustments that (1) a larger proportion of superior persons will have children than at present, (2) that the average number of offspring of each superior person will be greater than at present, (3) that the most inferior persons will have no children, and finally that [Pg vi] (4) other inferior persons will have fewer children than now. The science of eugenics is still young and much of its program must be tentative and subject to the test of actual experiment. ”

“ In spite of some defects such a program brings out clearly the principle of eugenics,—the substitution of a selective birth-rate for the selective death-rate by which natural selection has brought the race to its present level. Nature lets a multitude of individuals be born and kills off the poorer ones; eugenics proposes to have fewer poor ones and more good ones born in each generation. ”

“ All racial progress, or eugenics, therefore, depends on the creation of a good environment, and the fitting of the race to that environment. Every improvement in the environment should bring about a corresponding biological adaptation. The two factors in evolution must go side by side, if the race is to progress in what the human mind considers the direction of advancement. In this sense, euthenics and eugenics bear the same relation to human progress as a man's two legs do to his locomotion. ”

“ Like all contributions to the sum of social ideas, eugenics must work by the successive steps of invention, generalization and tradition, corresponding to the biological processes of variation, survival of the fittest and heredity. Invention, or discovery of the laws of eugenics, is here the part of the laboratory specialist, and should loom high in the attention of the sociologists of this generation. ”

“ In the light of these facts, what is the essential problem, first in eugenics, then in evolution? The eugenics problem is accurately to determine the desirable unit qualities, which must be of the stable type, and to combine and fix them in the race by breeding, eliminating at the same time the undesirable unit qualities. It is the problem of finding the exact units of inheritance, and of so fixing and combining, by breeding, these valuable units in the individuals of the coming generations that we shall have a more wholesome innate character in mankind. ”

“ Most colleges and universities are teaching the principles of heredity, and a great many of them add definite instruction in the principles of eugenics. Although the ultimate aim of eugenics—to raise the level of the whole human race—is perhaps as great an undertaking as the human mind can conceive, the American nation shows distinct signs of a willingness to grapple with it. And this book will have failed in its purpose, if it has not convinced the reader that means are available for attacking the problem at many points, and that immediate progress is not a mere dream. ”

“ On the other hand, if a higher race be substituted for the low one, all this terrible misery disappears. The most merciful form of what I ventured to call "eugenics" would consist in watching for the indications of superior strains or races, and in so favouring them that their progeny shall outnumber and gradually replace that of the old one. ”

“ It is as an answer to this question that the new science of eugenics is being mapped out, its field being the study of the biological factors affecting human evolution, with their application to the breeding of a better race of men. Though it deals chiefly with the laws of heredity it must consider also problems of environment and nurture, as will be seen later on. ”

“ When, however, we have found reason to believe that, even if practised without regard to eugenic considerations, birth-control may yet act beneficially to promote good breeding, we begin to realise how great a power it may possess when consciously and deliberately directed towards that end. In eugenics, as already pointed out, there are two objects that may be aimed at: one called positive eugenics, that seeks to promote the increase of the best stocks amongst us ”

“ The study of eugenics is intimately related to a wide range of subjects: to genetics, which explains the laws that govern the heredity of specific traits in man, and suggests certain practical applications of the rules of breeding to race improvement by cutting off undesirable strains and by selecting mates desirable from the eugenic standpoint ”

“ I realize that this statement is likely to be disputed by those biologists who see in eugenics only the possibility of controlling heredity so as to propagate better strains of humans, just as breeders of plants and animals have produced better domesticated varieties. ”

“ The science of eugenics is the natural result of the spread and acceptance of organic evolution, following the publication of Darwin's work on The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, in 1859. It took a generation for his ideas to win the day; but then they revolutionized the intellectual life of the civilized world. Man came to realize that the course of nature is regular ”

“ Although we are ignorant of the results of a rigid application of eugenics, a few of its results may be foretold with great certainty.
The eugenist who tries more than to eliminate the unfit will first of all be called upon to answer the question what strains are the best to cultivate. If it is a question of breeding Indian corn or chickens, we know what we want. We desire a large yield of good corn, or many eggs of heavy weight. But what do we want in man? Is it physical excellence, mental ability, creative power, or artistic genius? We must select certain ideals that we want to raise. ”

“ If this rigidity of proof is insisted on, it will appear that many of the data on which the theory of eugenics is based are unsatisfactory, and that much greater care must be exerted than finds favor with the enthusiastic adherents of eugenic theories. ”

“ There are two fields in which eugenics may be applied—the first, Negative, the second, Positive. Through the establishment of Negative Eugenics the unfit will be restrained from mating and perpetuating their unfitness in the future. ”

“ The Mendelians take seeds of known origin, and plant them and note the result. They carry out experimental breeding not only amongst plants but amongst the higher animals, including mammals who, in all essentials of structure and function, are one with ourselves. It is not possible, I believe, to over-estimate the supreme importance of Mendelian enquiry for eugenics. Eugenics is founded upon heredity, and genetics, which is Professor Bateson's name for the physiology of heredity and variation, is now working at [307] the very heart of those natural phenomena upon which eugenics depends. ”

“ Now if we are to achieve any immediate success we must clearly divide our proposals, as the present writer did some years ago, with Mr. Galton's approval, into two classes: positive eugenics and negative eugenics. The one would seek to encourage the parenthood of the worthy, the other to discourage the parenthood of the unworthy. Positive eugenics is the original eugenics, but, as the writer endeavoured to show at the time, negative eugenics is one with it in principle. The two are complementary, and are both practised by Nature: natural selection is one with natural rejection. ”

“ Negative eugenics is concerned with the elimination of hereditary diseases and defects; with the prevention or correction of diseases, defects, poisons, and practices in the parent that have a harmful effect upon the germ cells and the unborn child; with the elimination of social and moral conditions that endanger the life or handicap the progress of unborn generations. ”

“ By this time the reader will have seen that eugenics has some definite ideals not only as to how the race can be kept from deteriorating further, under the interference with natural selection which civilization entails, but as to how its physical, mental and moral level can actually be raised. He can easily draw his own conclusions as to what eugenics does not propose. ”

“ They have to be based on imperfect data. It cannot be too emphatically repeated that a great deal of careful statistical work has yet to be accomplished before the science of eugenics can make large advances.
I hesitate to speculate farther. A tree will have been planted; let it grow. Perhaps those who may thereafter feel themselves or be considered by others to be the possessors of notable eugenic qualities—let us for brevity call them “Eugenes”—will form their own clubs and look after their own interests. ”

“ Even those who still believed in what is conventionally called "the inheritance of acquired characteristics" would be quick to repudiate any such application of the doctrine as is commonly made by most of the philanthropists and social workers who are proceeding without seeking the light of biology. But the idea that these modifications are inherited is so widespread among all who have not studied biology, and is so much a part of the tradition of society, that the question must be here examined, before we can proceed confidently with our program of eugenics. ”

“ But it is possible, with present knowledge, to say that human traits, mental as well as physical, are inherited, in a high degree. Even before the final details as to the inheritance of all traits are worked out—a task that is never likely to be accomplished—there is ample material on which to base action for eugenics. The basal differences in the mental traits of man (and the physical as well, of course) are known to be due to heredity, and little modified by training. ”

“ The entire field of race betterment and social improvement is divided between eugenics, which considers only germinal or heritable changes in the race; and euthenics, which deals with improvement in the individual, and in his environment. ”

“ But, it may well be asked, how does this sudden need for eugenics arise, when the world has gone along without it for hundreds of millions of years in the past, and the human race has made the great ascent from an ape-like condition in spite of the fact that such a science as eugenics was never dreamed of?
For answer recall that natural selection, which is mainly responsible for bringing man to his present situation, has worked chiefly through a differential death-rate. The less fit die: the more fit survive. In the earlier stages of society, man interfered little with natural selection. ”

“ The aim of eugenics is therefore not primarily the collection of facts, but the construction and advocacy of practical proposals. The character of these proposals will of course depend on our conception of the laws of heredity, but the study of these laws forms the subject matter of the science of genetics. Genetics is a department of biology; and the last word in all controversies connected with heredity must rest with the biologist. ”

“ It is important to note, however, that any change in the individual during his prenatal life is euthenic, not eugenic. Therefore, contrary to the popular idea of the case, the "Better Babies" movement, the agitation for proper care of expectant mothers, and the like, are not directly a part of eugenics. The moment of conception is the point at which eugenics gives place to euthenics. Eugenics is therefore the fundamental method of human progress, euthenics the secondary one ”

“ The infant science of eugenics will have much to say on this subject hereafter; at present we are only discovering how complex and obscure the laws of heredity are. The State of the future will have to step in to prevent the propagation of undesirable variations, whether physical or mental, and will doubtless find means to encourage the increase of families that are well endowed by Nature. ”

“ Genetics is the term applied to the experimental study of heredity and variation in animals and plants, and the main concern of its students is the establishing of law and order among the phenomena {vii}there encountered. Eugenics, on the other hand, deals with the improvement of the human race under existing conditions of law and sentiment. The Eugenist has to take into account the religious and social beliefs and prejudices of mankind. ”

“ Lethal natural selection, then, has been and still is a factor of great importance in the evolution of the race, but at present it is doing little or nothing that promises to further the ideal of eugenics—race betterment.
But lethal natural selection is only half the story. It is obvious that if the constitution of a race can be altered by excess of deaths in a certain class, it can equally be altered by excess of births in a certain class. ”

“ The investigation of human eugenics--that is, of the conditions under which men of a high type are produced--is at present extremely hampered by the want of full family histories, both medical and general, extending over three or four generations. ”