POSSIBILITIES OF RACE IMPROVEMENT
It is unnecessary to argue the desirability of race improvement.
It is the avowed ultimate object of every religious, moral, social
and individual reform. In the light of history we know that race
improvement is possible. Degeneration is the scientists' formula for
the theologian's "fall from grace," evolution is the Darwinian phrase
for
"That far-off divine event To which the whole creation moves."
The Eugenist does not say that religion, morality, and education are
ineffective, he only claims that these great forces should apply to
the foundations of society instead of being spent and dissipated in a
thousand less important directions.
Eugenics is not a step in the dark. The theory is based on observation
and its practice on a selection of the innumerable experiences of
mankind. Since the first man married the first bride mankind has been
unconsciously offering an accumulation of experiments in improvement,
deterioration and stagnation of the race. It is only inexplicable
reticence which has diverted man's study from these phenomena. Failure
to appreciate relative values, the prejudice arising from a debased or
immature morality, the bigotry of misunderstood religion and the dread
of wounding prudish susceptibilities have led competent writers to
devote to pigs and sheep volumes which should have had man for their
subject. "The noblest study of mankind is man," but our naturalists
have not advertised it sufficiently. Charles Darwin, whose powers of
minute observation are admitted to have been supreme even by those
who dispute his conclusions, recognised the racial bias against "the
noblest study." Writing to A. R. Wallace in 1857 he said: "You ask
whether I shall discuss 'man.' I think I shall avoid the subject, as so
surrounded with prejudice; though I admit it is the highest and most
interesting problem for the naturalist."
The old attempts to divide mankind into good and bad have failed beyond
recall. The first lesson we can learn from a study of the past is to
recognise the probably infinite variety of type which exists, not only
in the attainments, but in the potentialities of various types of man
and woman. We no longer wonder at differences of mentality when we
know the variations in bodily form and structure. We see that some are
capable of endurance, some are physically weak, some are almost leonine
in strength. Each variation in strength may be united with differing
degrees of other qualities, of sight, of motion, of temperament--there
is no end to the combinations. We are well on the road to the
elements of Eugenics when we have grasped two facts, the analysable
distinctions between individuals, and the fact that broadly speaking
a child is endowed with its essential characteristics from birth. The
qualifications of the hereditary principle need not be set forth here.
Darwin's theory is being modified in our day on important but not vital
details. Eugenics is only interested in so far as we admit this broad
generalisation to which no scholar of to-day would substantially demur.
We cannot in every case disentangle human characteristics with
sufficient precision to warrant us in saying which combinations are
desirable and which are undesirable. We can, however, get into our
minds the idea that one good quality may be happily supplemented by
another, or that certain characteristics might prove irreconcilable
in combination. For instance strong sexuality allied to moral
responsibility would prove an admirable combination, but the former
quality in conjunction with weak mentality would work for certain ill.
The marriage of near relations has been demonstrated to stereotype
existent combinations, the evil is not as was once feared that the
act was in itself categorically immoral and therefore followed by
Nature's punishment. It amounted to the same thing in many cases
because Nature's law is progress or retrogression; to stand still is to
stultify the law of the universe. The highest and noblest physically,
morally and mentally are the most complicated, and there is little
danger that they will find their match amongst those with whom they
are likely to marry. The risk of like marrying like is more inherently
probable amongst the commonplace and mediocre. The danger becomes a
terrible one when the lowest rung of the ladder is reached and it is
here that intermarriage is most common if not invariable. The lowest
degenerates, the most vulgar criminals the absolute failures, the
"creatures who once were men" rarely have sexual unions of any sort
or kind outside their own degraded circle. The unfit breed more of
their kind and do not improve. The commonplace may by happy chance or
on wise information mingle just those characteristics which raise the
race to a higher level. The highest like those in the last category,
may in the next generation lead to still higher heights or they may
maintain their standard of efficiency, or their caste may sink to lower
circles. In any of these cases of course there is the alternative that
their race may be extinguished. All this is merely to state the case
as it stands. There are few who dispute the facts, the Eugenic remedy
is either not appreciated or it is ignored. It cannot be a subject of
indifference whether the best types increase or the worst. It must
matter to the race, it must seriously affect the present generation,
it must be of increasing importance to each generation. Cruel, harsh,
severe, repressive laws have been discarded as ineffective and inhuman.
We cannot go back to an abortive policy which failed even a Torquemada.
On the contrary we have repressed natural checks to population and must
increasingly continue to do so wherever we discover new methods of
foiling Nature's indiscriminate destructiveness. The stream of tendency
cannot be dammed, we must adapt our social mill-wheels to the new
channels which the river of time has cut in the fields of experience.
We must discard the old unscientific view of existence as an
inexplicable riddle, of marriage as a lucky bag, of crime as a mere
chance occurrence, of genius as a "sport," of events as casualties
or accidents and of goodness as accessible to all and badness the
deliberate choice of the wilful. A few years ago a well-known publisher
exposed a huge poster advertising his encyclopædia. It was called "The
Child; What will he become?" Two series of pictures were given, the
top line indicating the gradual ascent of the child fortunate enough
to read the encyclopædia. By easy stages he passed through the Sabbath
school, emerged into the business office where he accumulated wealth
and a cheerful countenance, he ascended into the paradise of benevolent
baldness and appeared in the final picture a happy patriarch breathing
out blessings and probably platitudes at every pore. Contrasted with
these series, the bottom line pictorially followed the awful fate
of the child who did not read this wonderful work. He deteriorated
rapidly, first a pickpocket, then a forger, finally a murderer, and
a drunkard all the time. This is the classic exaggeration of the
unscientific view actually held by some well-meaning reformers. And
if we ridicule this discredited theory of life why do we not frankly
disavow the hopeless "reforms" which are the natural product of this
haphazard view? We accept the doctrine on which Eugenics is based
because all the facts conform it, but we continue to spend our time
and money on methods of reform which have lost their root and now only
cumber the ground.
The "points" of an animal have for ages been the subject of the
breeders' successful efforts, but they are not more certainly inherited
than are the form of a man's head, his stature, the colour of his
eyes, and the length of his life, all of which are hereditary like the
colour of a horse, the scent of a flower and the shape of an apple.
Naturalists no more than farmers can with exactness predict that 173
live lambs will be born on one farm, that every flower of the same
class will give equally abundant perfume, or that every fruit on the
same tree will weigh just the same to an ounce. We are still more
ignorant or at least equally ignorant about the exact results in a
particular instance of the character of the individual offspring
even when we are reasonably well acquainted with all its antecedents.
We can say with certainty, however, as Dr. Karl Pearson says that
"of all the children of a definite class of parents like A and B we
can assert that a definite proportion will have a definite amount of
any character of A and B, with a certainty as great as that of any
scientific prediction whatever. I am not speaking from belief or from
theory but simply from facts, from thousands of instances recorded
by my fellow-workers or myself. Here is a great principle of life,
something apparently controlling all life from its simplest to its most
complex forms, and yet, though we too often see its relentless effects
we go on hoping that at any rate we and our offspring shall be the
exceptions to its rules. For one of us as an individual this may be
true, but for the _average_ of us all, for the nation as a whole, it is
an idle hope. You cannot change the leopard's spots, and you cannot
change bad stock to good; you may dilute it, but until it ceases to
multiply, it will not cease to be." (National Life from the Standpoint
of Science.) The reformer sees in these facts the basis of his highest
hopes as certainly as he sees therein the condemnation of all attempts
at reform which ignore these bed-rock truths. Permanent maintenance
of good standards, gradual elimination of the hopelessly bad stock,
and experimentation designed to utilise all the good elements on the
border line between the desirable and the undesired--this is the
Eugenist's programme in the immediate present. His ideal goes beyond
this practicable programme, for the Eugenist aims at some final
justification of Nature. Without worshipping Nature he desires to
understand her processes and walk in harmony with her tendencies.
The most potent of all the beneficent influences in the organic world
has been the law of Natural Selection. By "Law" of course we merely
mean the observed invariable sequence of events, and whether or not
this universe has a guiding Intelligence behind it, the "survival of
the fittest" has taken its course by means of this particular law or
process. It is impossible to deny that this selection has more often
been instinctive than conscious. It is easy to predict that conscious
intelligent selection may produce as real an improvement in the human
race as has been obtained in the animal and vegetable kingdoms where
man has so long directed the survival of the desired or elimination of
undesired "points."
Patience, study, discrimination and courage are the principal weapons
in the Eugenic armoury. With these qualities assured Eugenics may be
trusted in the long run to outdistance all other competitors in the
field of race improvement. Study is a _sine qua non_, because Eugenics
means Probability based on Experience, and the more extensive our
researches the safer our generalisations will be. Patience is needed
because unlike other cures Eugenics will help the individual less than
it will assist society, and it will always place the interests of the
race first and foremost. Accordingly its cures will not be apparent in
the current generation. This may discourage the unthinking, it will
tire the hand-to-mouth reformer, the superficial will dismiss the
whole thing as useless. Wisdom in discrimination will be essential
because sometimes "the stone which the builders reject" has a way of
becoming "the headstone of the corner." But when we have ascertained
beyond reasonable doubt the qualities we want to preserve and the
characteristics we desire to eliminate we must be courageous in the
application of our remedy.
We look not only at the worst but also at the best when we ask
ourselves can the Race be improved? The highest type of man known to
men must be our model. We must constantly and actively believe that
what man has been man may be. If mankind be truly one we are linked to
the Grants as well as to the Guiteaus, to the saviours as well as to
the assassins of society. Our kinship with the lowest must make us more
merciful, our kinship with the highest may make us more ambitious to be
contented with nothing short of the best.