eugenic research, in a paper read before the Sociological Society, on
February 14, the festival of St. Valentine. Although the ancient
observances of that day have now died out, St. Valentine was for many
centuries the patron saint of sexual selection, more especially in
England. It can scarcely be said that any credit in this matter belongs
to the venerable saint himself; it was by an accident that he achieved
his conspicuous position in the world. He was simply a pious Christian
who was beheaded for his faith in Rome under Claudius. But it so
happened that his festival fell at that period in early spring when
birds were believed to pair, and when youths and maidens were accustomed
to select partners for themselves or for others. This custom--which has
been studied together with many allied primitive practices by
Mannhardt[154]--was not always carried out on February 14, sometimes it
took place a little later. In England, where it was strictly associated
with St. Valentine's Day, the custom was referred to by Lydgate, and by
Charles of Orleans in the rondeaus and ballades he wrote during his long
imprisonment in England. The name Valentins or Valentines was also
introduced into France (where the custom had long existed) to designate
the young couples thus constituted. This method of sexual selection,
half playful, half serious, flourished especially in the region between
England, the Moselle, and the Tyrol. The essential part of the custom
lay in the public choice of a fitting mate for marriageable girls.
Sometimes the question of fitness resolved itself into one of good
looks; occasionally the matter was settled by lot. There was no
compulsion about these unions; they were often little more than a game,
though at times they involved a degree of immorality which caused the
authorities to oppose them. But very frequently the sexual selection
thus exerted led to weddings, and these playful Valentine unions were
held to be a specially favourable prelude to a happy marriage.
It is scarcely necessary to show how the ancient customs associated with
St. Valentine's Day are taken up again and placed on a higher plane by
the great movement which is now beginning to shape itself among us. The
old Valentine unions were made by a process of caprice tempered more or
less by sound instincts and good sense. In the sexual selection of the
future the same results will be attained by more or less deliberate and
conscious recognition of the great laws and tendencies which
investigation is slowly bringing to light. The new St. Valentine will be
a saint of science rather than of folk-lore.
Whenever such statements as these are made it is always retorted that
love laughs at science, and that the winds of passion blow where they
list.[155] That, however, is by no means altogether true, and in any case
it is far from covering the whole of the ground. It is hard to fight
against human nature, but human nature itself is opposed to
indiscriminate choice of mates. It is not true that any one tends to
love anybody, and that mutual attraction is entirely a matter of chance.
The investigations which have lately been carried out show that there
are certain definite tendencies in this matter, that certain kinds of
people tend to be attracted to certain kinds, especially that like are
attracted to like rather than unlike to unlike, and that, again, while
some kinds of people tend to be married with special frequency other
kinds tend to be left unmarried.[156] Sexual selection, even when left to
random influences, is still not left to chance; it follows definite and
ascertainable laws. In that way the play of love, however free it may
appear, is really limited in a number of directions. People do not tend
to fall in love with those who are in racial respects a contrast to
themselves; they do not tend to fall in love with foreigners; they do
not tend to be attracted to the ugly, the diseased, the deformed. All
these things may happen, but they are the exception and not the rule.
These limitations to the roving impulses of love, while very real, to
some extent vary at different periods in accordance with the ideals
which happen to be fashionable. In more remote ages they have been still
more profoundly modified by religious and social ideas; polygamy and
polyandry, the custom of marrying only inside one's own caste, or only
outside it, all these various and contradictory plans have been easily
accepted at some place and some time, and have offered no more conscious
obstacle to the free play of love than among ourselves is offered by the
prohibition against marriage between near relations.
Those simple-minded people who talk about the blind and irresistible
force of passion are themselves blind to very ordinary psychological
facts. Passion--when it occurs--requires in normal persons cumulative
and prolonged forces to impart to it full momentum.[157] In its early
stages it is under the control of many influences, including influences
of reason. If it were not so there could be no sexual selection, nor any
social organization.[158]
The eugenic ideal which is now developing is thus not an artificial
product, but the reasoned manifestation of a natural instinct, which has
often been far more severely strained by the arbitrary prohibitions of
the past than it is ever likely to be by any eugenic ideals of the
future. The new ideal will be absorbed into the conscience of the
community, whether or not like a kind of new religion,[159] and will
instinctively and unconsciously influence the impulses of men and women.
It will do all this the more surely since, unlike the taboos of savage
societies, the eugenic ideal will lead men and women to reject as
partners only the men and women who are naturally unfit--the diseased,
the abnormal, the weaklings--and conscience will thus be on the side of
impulse.
It may indeed be pointed out that those who advocate a higher and more
scientific conscience in matters of mating are by no means plotting
against love, which is for the most part on their side, but rather
against the influences that do violence to love: on the one hand, the
reckless and thoughtless yielding to mere momentary desire, and, on the
other hand, the still more fatal influences of wealth and position and
worldly convenience which give a factitious value to persons who would
never appear attractive partners in life were love and eugenic ideals
left to go hand in hand. It is such unions, and not those inspired by
the wholesome instincts of wholesome lovers, which lead, if not to the
abstract "deterioration of the race," at all events in numberless cases
to the abiding unhappiness of persons who choose a mate without
realizing how that mate is likely to develop, nor what sort of children
may probably be expected from the union. The eugenic ideal will have to
struggle with the criminal and still more resolutely with the rich; it
will have few serious quarrels with normal and well constituted lovers.
It will now perhaps be clear how it is that the eugenic conception of
the improvement of the race embodies a new ideal. We are familiar with
legislative projects for compulsory certificates as a condition of
marriage. But even apart from all the other considerations which make
such schemes both illusory and undesirable, these externally imposed
regulations fail to go to the root of the matter. If they are voluntary,
if they spring out of a fine eugenic aspiration, it is another matter.
Under these conditions the method may be carried out at once. Professor
Grasset has pointed out one way in which this may be effected. We
cannot, he remarks, follow the procedure of a military _conseil de
revision_ and compulsorily reject the candidate for a definite defect.
But it would be possible for the two families concerned to call a
conference of their two family doctors, after examination of the
would-be bride and bridegroom, permitting the doctors to discuss freely
the medical aspects of the proposed union, and undertaking to accept
their decision, without asking for the revelation of any secrets, the
families thus remaining ignorant of the defect which prevented this
union but might not prevent another union, for the chief danger in many
cases comes from the conjunction of convergent morbid tendencies.[160] In
France, where much power remains with the respective families, this
method might be operative, provided complete confidence was felt in the
doctors concerned. In some countries, such as England, the prospective
couple might prefer to take the matter into their own hands, to discuss
it frankly, and to seek medical advice on their own account; this is now
much more frequently done than was formerly the case. But all compulsory
projects of this kind, and indeed any mere legislation, cannot go to the
root of the matter. For in the first place, what we need is a great body
of facts, and a careful attention to the record and registration and
statistical tabulation of personal and family histories. In the second
place, we need that sound ideals and a high sense of responsibility
should permeate the whole community, first its finer and more
distinguished members and then, by the usual contagion that rules in
such matters, the whole body of its members.[161] In time, no doubt, this
would lead to concerted social action. We may reasonably expect that a
time will come when if, for instance, an epileptic woman conceals her
condition from the man she is marrying it would generally be felt that
an offence has been committed serious enough to invalidate the marriage.
We must not suppose that lovers would be either willing or competent to
investigate each other's family and medical histories. But it would be
at least as easy and as simple to choose a partner from those persons
who had successfully passed the eugenic test--more especially since such
persons would certainly be the most attractive group in the
community--as it is for an Australian aborigine to select a conjugal
partner from one social group rather than from any other.[162] It is a
matter of accepting an ideal and of exerting our personal and social
influence in the direction of that ideal. If we really seek to raise the
level of humanity we may in this way begin to do so to-day.
NOTE ON THE LIFE-HISTORY RECORD
The extreme interest of a Life-History Record is obvious, even apart
from its eventual scientific value. Most of us would have reason to
congratulate ourselves had such records been customary when we were
ourselves children. It is probable that this is becoming more generally
realized, though until recently only the pioneers have here been active.
"I started a Life-History Album for each of my children," writes Mr.
F.H. Perrycoste in a private letter, "as soon as they were born; and by
the time they arrive at man's and woman's estate they will have valuable
records of their own physical, mental, and moral development, which
should be of great service to them when they come to have children of
their own, whilst the physical--in which are included, of course,
medical--records may at any time be of great value to their own medical
advisers in later life. I have reason to regret that some such Albums
were not kept for my wife and myself, for they would have afforded the
necessary data by which to 'size up' the abilities and conduct of our
children. I know, for instance, pretty well what was my own Galtonian
rank as a schoolboy, and I am constantly asking myself whether my boy
will do as well, better, or worse. Now fortunately I do happen to
remember roughly what stages I had reached at one or two transition
periods of school-life; but if only such an Album had been kept for me,
I could turn it up and check my boy against myself in each subject at
each yearly stage. You will gather from this that I consider it of great
importance that ample details of school-work and intellectual
development should be entered in the Album. I find the space at my
disposal for these entries insufficient, and consequently I summarize in
the Album and insert a reference to sheets of fuller details which I
keep; but it might be well, when another edition of the Album comes to
be published, to agitate for the insertion of extra blank pages after
the age of eight or nine, in order to allow of the transcription of full
school-reports. However, the great thing is to induce people to keep an
Album that will form the nucleus round which any number of fuller
records can cluster."
It is not necessary that the Galtonian type of Album should be rigidly
preserved, and I am indebted to "Henry Hamill," the author of _The Truth
We Owe to Youth_, for the following suggestions as to the way in which
such a record may be carried out:
"The book should not be a mere dry rigmarole, but include a certain
appeal to sentiment. The subject should begin to make the entries
himself when old enough to do so properly, i.e. so that the book will
not be disfigured--though indeed the naivity of juvenile phrasing, etc.,
may be of a particular interest. From a graphological point of view, the
evolution of the handwriting will be of interest; and if for no other
reason, specimens of handwriting ought to appear in it from year to
year, while the parent is still writing the other entries. There may now
be a certain sacramental character in the life-history. The subject
should be led to regard the book as a witness, and to perceive in it an
additional reason for avoiding every act the mention of which would be a
disfigurement of the history. At the same time, the nature of the
witness may be made to correct the wrong notions prevailing as to the
worthiness of acts, and to sanctify certain of them that have been
foolishly degraded. Thus there may be left several leaves blank before
the pages of forms for filling in anthropometric and physiological data,
and the headings may be made to suggest a worthier way of viewing these
things. For instance, there may be the indication 'Place and time of
conception,' and a specimen entry may be of service to lead commonplace
minds into a more reverent and poetical view than is now usual--such as
the one I culled from the life-history of an American child: 'Our
second child M---- was conceived on Midsummer Day, under the shade of a
friendly sycamore, beneath the cloudless blue of Southern California.'
Or, instead of restricting the reference to the particular episode, it
may refer to the whole chapter of Love which that episode adorned, more
especially in the case of a first child, when a poetical history of the
mating of the parents may precede. The presence of the idea that the
book would some day be read by others than the intimate circle, would
restrain the tendency of some persons to inordinate self-revelation and
'gush.' Such books as these would form the dearest heirlooms of a
family, helping to knit its bonds firmer, and giving an insight into
individual character which would supplement the more tangible data for
the pedigree in a most valuable way. The photographs taken every three
months or so ought to be as largely as possible nude. The gradual
transition from childhood would help to prevent an abrupt feeling
arising, and the practice would be a valuable aid to the rehabilitation
of the nude, and of genuineness in our daily life, no matter in what
respect. This leads to the difficult question of how far moral aspects
should be entertained. 'To-day Johnnie told his first fib; we pretended
to disbelieve everything else he said, and he began to see that lying
was bad policy.' 'Chastised Johnnie for the first time for pulling the
wings off a fly; he wanted to know why we might kill flies outright, but
not mutilate them,' and so on. For in this way parents would train
themselves in the psychology of education and character-building, though
books by specially gifted parents would soon appear for their guidance.
"Of course, whatever relevant circumstances were available about the
ante-natal period or the mother's condition would be noted (but who
would expect a mother to note that she laced tight up to such and such a
month? Perhaps the keeping of a log like this might act as a deterrent).
Similarly, under diet and regimen, year by year, the assumption of
breast-feeding--provision of columns for the various incidents of
it--weight before and after feeding, etc., would have a great suggestive
value.
"The provision under diet and regimen of columns for 'drug habits, if
any'--tea, coffee, alcohol, nicotine, morphia, etc.--would have a
suggestive value and operate in the direction of the simple life and a
reverence for the body. Some good aphorisms might be strewed in, such
as:
"'If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred' (Whitman).
"As young people circulate their 'Books of Likes and Dislikes,' etc.,
and thus in an entertaining way provide each other with insight into
mutual character, so the Life-History need not be an _arcanum_--at least
where people have nothing to be ashamed of. It would be a very trying
ordeal, no doubt, to admit even intimate friends to this confidence.
_But as eugenics spread, concealment of taint will become almost
impracticable_, and the facts may as well be confessed. But even then
there will be limitations. There might be an esoteric book for the
individual's own account of himself. Such important items as the
incidence of puberty (though notorious in some communities) could not
well be included in a book open even to the family circle, for
generations to come. The quiescence of the genital sense, the sedatives
naturally occurring, important as these are, and occupying the
consciousness in so large a degree, would find no place; nevertheless, a
private journal of the facts would help to steady the individual, and
prove a check against disrespect to his body.
"As the facts of individual evolution would be noted, so likewise would
those of dissolution. The first signs of decay--the teeth, the
elasticity of body and mind--would provide a valuable sphere for all who
are disposed to the diary-habit. The journals of individuals with a gift
for introspection would furnish valuable material for psychologists in
the future. Life would be cleansed in many ways. Journals would not have
to be bowdlerized, like Marie Bashkirtseff's, for the morbidity that
gloats on the forbidden would have a lesser scope, much that is now
regarded as disgraceful being then accepted as natural and right.
"The book might have several volumes, and that for the periods of
infancy and childhood might need to be less private than the one for
puberty. More, in his _Utopia_, demands that lovers shall learn to know
each other as they really are, i.e. naked. That is now the most Utopian
thing in More's _Utopia_. But the lovers might communicate their
life-histories to each other as a preliminary.
"The whole plan would, of course, finally have to be over-hauled by the
so-called 'man of the world.'"
Not everyone may agree with this conception of the Life-History Album
and its uses. Some will prefer a severely dry and bald record of
measurements. At the present time, however, there is room for very
various types of such documents. The important point is to realize that,
in some form or another, a record of this kind from birth or earlier is
practicable, and constitutes a record which is highly desirable alike on
personal, social, and scientific grounds.
FOOTNOTES:
[147] Dr. Scott Nearing, "Race Suicide _versus_ Over-Population," _Popular
Science Monthly_, January, 1911. And from the biological side Professor
Bateson concludes (_Biological Fact and the Structure of Society_, p.
23) that "it is in a decline in the birth-rate that the most promising
omen exists for the happiness of future generations."
[148] Galton himself, the grandson of Erasmus Darwin, and the half-cousin
of Charles Darwin, may be said to furnish a noble illustration of an
unconscious process of eugenics. (He has set forth his ancestry in
_Memories of My Life_.) On his death, the editor of the _Popular Science
Monthly_ wrote, referring to the fact that Galton was nominated to
succeed William James in the honorary membership of an Academy of
Science: "These two men are the greatest whom he has known. James
possessed the more complicated personality; but they had certain common
traits--a combination of perfect aristocracy with complete democracy,
directness, kindliness, generosity, and nobility beyond all measure. It
has been said that eugenics is futile because it cannot define its end.
The answer is simple--we want men like William James and Francis Galton"
(_Popular Science Monthly_, _March_, 1911.) Probably most of those who
were brought, however slightly, in contact with these two fine
personalities will subscribe to this conclusion.
[149] Galton chiefly studied the families to which men of intellectual
ability belong, especially in his _Hereditary Genius_ and _English Men
of Science_; various kinds of pathological families have since been
investigated by Karl Pearson and his co-workers (see the series of
_Biometrika_); the pedigrees of the defective classes (especially the
feeble-minded and epileptic) are now being accurately worked out, as by
Godden, at Vineland, New Jersey, and Davenport, in New York (see e.g.
_Eugenics Review_, April, 1911, and _Journal of Nervous and Mental
Disease_, November, 1911).
[150] "When once more the importance of good birth comes to be recognized
in a new sense," wrote W.C.D. Whetham and Mrs. Whetham (in _The Family
and the Nation_, p. 222), "when the innate physical and mental qualities
of different families are recorded in the central sociological
department or scientifically reformed College of Arms, the pedigrees of
all will be known to be of supreme interest. It would be understood to
be more important to marry into a family with a good hereditary record
of physical and mental and moral qualities than it ever has been
considered to be allied to one with sixteen quarterings."
[151] The importance of such biographical records of aptitude and
character are so great that some, like Schallmayer (_Vererbung und
Auslese_, 2nd ed., 1910, p. 389) believe that they must be made
universally obligatory. This proposal, however, seems premature.
[152] In many undesigned and unforeseen ways these registers may be of
immense value. They may even prove the means of overthrowing our
pernicious and destructive system of so-called "education." A step in
this direction has been suggested by Mr. R.T. Bodey, Inspector of
Elementary Schools, at a meeting of the Liverpool branch of the Eugenics
Education Society: "Education facilities should be carefully distributed
with regard to the scientific likelihood of their utilization to the
maximum of national advantage, and this not for economic reasons only,
but because it was cruel to drag children from their own to a different
sphere of life, and cruel to the class they deserted. Since the
activities of the nation and the powers of the children were alike
varied in kind and degree, the most natural plan would be to sort them
both out, and then design a school system expressly in order to fit one
to the other. At present there was no fixed purpose, but a perpetual
riot of changes, resulting in distraction of mind, discontinuity of
purpose, and increase of cost, while happiness decayed because desires
grew faster than possessions or the sense of achievement. The only
really scientific basis for a national system of education would be a
full knowledge of the family history of each child. With more perfect
classification of family talent the need of scholarships of
transplantation would become less, for each of them was the confession
of an initial error in placing the child. Then there would be more money
to be spared for industrial research, travelling and art studentships,
and other aids to those who had the rare gift of original thought"
(_British Medical Journal_, November 18, 1911).
[153] I should add that there is one obstacle, viz. expense. When the
present chapter was first published in its preliminary form as an
article in the _Nineteenth Century and After_ (May, 1906), Galton,
always alive to everything bearing on the study of Eugenics, wrote to me
that he had been impressed by the generally sympathetic reception my
paper had received, and that he felt encouraged to consider whether it
was possible to begin giving such certificates at once. He asked for my
views, among others, as to the ground which should be covered by such
certificates. The programme I set forth was somewhat extensive, as I
considered that the applicant must not only bring evidence of a sound
ancestry, but also submit to anthropological, psychological, and medical
examination. Galton eventually came to the conclusion that the expenses
involved by the scheme rendered it for the present impracticable. My
opinion was, and is, that though the charge for such a certificate might
in the first place be prohibitive for most people, a few persons might
find it desirable to seek, and advantageous to possess, such
certificates, and that it is worth while at all events to make a
beginning.
[154] Mannhardt, _Wald-und Feldkulte_, 1875, Vol. I, pp. 422 _et seq._ I
have discussed seasonal erotic festivals in a study of "The Phenomena of
Sexual Periodicity," _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, Vol. I.