By artificial selection I mean all conscious and purposive arrangements
between men and women which have in view character of offspring. This is
opposed to natural selection which is merely instinctive unteleological
union with one of the opposite sex as impelled by animal passion or
romantic love. All sexual union among the lower animals is by natural
selection; they do not forecast consequences, and by conforming to
known laws determine consequences. Among the lower races of men natural
selection is the sole or at least dominant factor in marital matters,
but as civilisation advances artificial selection becomes a more and
more powerful element. A truly thoughtful and intelligent man in our
day in view of marriage will most carefully consider his own life
history and that of his parents and ancestors, and also that of his
intended partner and her ancestors, as to physical or mental disease,
which might be handed down to the issue of the proposed union. He
would not, for instance, marry into a family which has a tendency to
consumption or insanity, for this would be a crime against his possible
descendants. Further, this growth of artificial selection with the
progress of society is manifest not only as regards individual action but
by state regulation. Even in barbarous states it soon becomes evident
to the leaders that if strong healthy men are to be had to defend and
maintain the nation, strict attention must be paid to the character of
those who marry. In Sparta and other ancient states this principle was
recognised, and modern governments seek in many more or less indirect
ways to encourage marriage between the most fit, so that good citizens
and warriors may be raised up to serve the state. All this regulation
of marriage by either individual or state action which looks to the
character of offspring I term artificial selection.
In the evolution of man as a rational animal artificial selection will
more and more prevail, and human breeding will become a well defined
art. Man is always artificial,[8] and it is his goal to become in all
his life unnatural and thoroughly artful. There can ultimately be no
_laissez-faire_ policy as to marriage or any other institution. The
history of marriage is the history of the gradual retirement of natural
selection; but art has come in here more slowly than in other relations
of life owing to tremendous conservatism and the power of human passion.
But the time has now come when man must more than ever before attend by
artificial selection—that is, purposed care—to the perpetuation of the
species in the line of its true advancement, spiritual achievement. I do
not now see how the necessity of artificial selection can be gainsaid by
any one who takes a broad view of the evolution of the race.
The methods of artificial selection are either negative, which restrain
the unfit from propagating, or positive, which encourage the fit to
propagate. The most radical negative method is mutilation, and is
employed by man with the lower animals and with slaves, but this
plan could hardly be used by civilised society for human breeding.
Imprisonment temporarily restrains some classes of society from
perpetuating themselves. Prevention of conception is at present mostly
a voluntary means, but accomplishes the elimination of both fit and
unfit. Celibacy of monk and nun, of bachelor and maid, works also in both
directions. In many indirect ways society discourages from marriage those
whom it supposes to be unfit as tested by wealth, rank, or birth.
It is not, however, so much by the extension of any negative methods, but
rather by positive means that artificial selection may be best employed.
I will mention three forms by which human breeding might be materially
advanced.
By common law and custom the wife surrenders herself physically to submit
and morally to obey the husband. This is not for the most part harshly
and literally carried out in civilised countries; still there is a vast
deal of oppression which is hidden from all eyes, and which is often
passively received by women as her rightful lot. This again is a subject
upon which delicacy—perhaps unwise—forbids free discussion, but its
bearing is manifest. If women have the choice to bear or not to bear, and
she with educated conscience choose by fitness of offspring, a large and
powerful element of artificial selection may be introduced. Again all
governments have laws concerning marriage which act in general toward
encouraging the fit. Certain conditions as to age, etc., being fulfilled,
the state grants a marriage licence, and public opinion might easily be
led to make the requirements more stringent. As a physician has suggested
to me a certificate of health from an approved medical examiner might
be required of all applicants for legal marriage. This would certainly
be a strong measure of artificial selection, and would save much misery
springing from ignorance and vice. It surely seems scarcely fitting that
those who cannot pass an examination for life insurance freely contract
marriage with view to issue.
But the plan of artificial selection which seems to me most feasible at
the present time would be voluntary associations of men and women who
bind themselves to learn and apply the laws of heredity in their marriage
relations, to seek for expert guidance, and in all their life to live not
merely purely, but according to reason and science. Heredity societies
of this stamp which should favor marriages only between members would
ultimately become a rational aristocracy, and true and good blood would
be perpetuated in the best manner. There is much, indeed, to be done in
the science of heredity, especially as regards laws of transmission of
mental and moral qualities,[9] but still we have even now a sufficient
basis of knowledge to make the experiment well worth trying.
Many objections can be raised to such schemes. For instance, it will
be said that they might assure us of obtaining men of talent, but we
should forever lose men of genius. If such societies were in, vogue in
the Elizabethan period, we might never have had a Shakespeare. What
likelihood that a scientific expert would advise the marriage of John
Shakespeare and Mary Arden! I answer that we should have had a dozen
Shakespeares instead of one. The law of the production of geniuses is
not beyond human ken. Maud S. is truly a genius in horseflesh, but
she came into the world in no fortuitous or instinctive way, but by
scientific breeding. The applicability of similar foresight in breeding
men would produce geniuses in abundance. It may not be accomplished in an
exactly analogous manner, an expert leading around eminent men to “make
the season,” but the analogous practical results will nevertheless be
obtained.
Another objection which might be urged is that any such scheme would
seriously diminish population. True; but what thoughtful man applies
the numerical test to the progress of the race! It is not quantity of
citizens but quality, which constitutes the true greatness of states. The
counting of heads instead of what is in heads, is a mistake into which
democracies are peculiarly apt to fall. Were all men exactly equal a
census would be a true test, but considering the tremendous inequalities
in humanity it is sheer folly for a country to glory in the number of its
adherents, or a sect in the number of its adherents, or a city in the
number of its citizens. Civilisations are weighed down and ultimately
crushed by the dead weight of the masses. The barbarian is not without
but within the civilisation. By recent inquiries in New York and Chicago
the slums appear to be five times as prolific as the most aristocratic
portions; and while good may come from the lowest born, and bad from the
highest born, still the chances are decidedly in favor of the high born.
A few rise above the level of their birth, a few sink below it, but the
great majority of men remain for their lives on the general level of
society in which they were born. The United States would be a greater
nation with 10,000,000 choice inhabitants than with ten times 10,000,000
of the ill bred and low bred. Athens by the vulgar test of numbers was
but a small and mean city, but in true greatness as revealed in far
reaching spiritual power, she stands in the very forefront.
Again it will be objected that scientific schemes for human breeding
would inevitably destroy that beautiful flower of Christian civilisation,
the poetry and romance of love. Sentiment and chivalry would wither, and
brutality and cold calculation would supplant all tender and refined
emotion. I should answer that the true refinement which refuses to
obtrude the things of sense, and true purity which refuses to dwell on
them salaciously, are perfectly compatible with the fullest knowledge
and the consequent action. Lubricity breeds best upon a half knowledge
acquired in dubious ways. A serious practical scientific treatment of
this subject will not glorify the flesh with the fierce gusto of Walt
Whitman, nor, with the Zola school, dwell upon animalism with the morbid
detail of a heated imagination; but it will bring into the clearest light
the laws of sex and the rules for the development of the human race into
the perfect man. These laws of nature, which science reveals, are laws of
duty and laws of God, and when once appropriated as such by Ethics and
Religion, they will become the basis for all that is high in emotion and
chivalrous in action.
In that most vital of matters, human breeding, man is far behind his
progress in all other spheres of action; but here as elsewhere Science
must enter, not to destroy but to fulfil, to build up manhood and
womanhood into the perfected relations which can only come from rational
action, illuminated by complete knowledge, and sanctioned by noblest
sentiment.