[7] In an article in _The Arena_ for June, 1890, I endeavored to plainly
set forth the renewal of society from its lowest elements as the
greatest disease in our social life, and to show that the remedy lies
in a thorough application of science to human breeding. Just how this
application was to be made I did not state, for I did not include this
in the scope of my discussion. Mr. Stead in his _Review of Reviews_ for
July, 1890, and Mr. Wallace in the September _Fortnightly Review_ and
October _Popular Science Monthly_, 1890, have drawn inferences on this
point which I am not prepared to allow. Mr. Stead speaks in headlines and
in text of “murder, mutilation, or imprisonment” as the methods which I
hint at, and Mr. Wallace remarks upon my views “that such interference
with personal freedom in matters so deeply affecting individual happiness
will never be adopted by the majority of any nation, or if adopted would
never be submitted to by the minority without a life-and-death struggle.”
It seems incumbent then on me to state more clearly what I understand
by artificial selection, and what forms of it are most expedient at the
present time.
[8] By artificial I understand not what is unnatural or against nature
but that which is after conscious deliberation more in accord with the
laws of nature. It is a higher degree of the natural.
[9] See my remarks on this point in _Nature_, Oct. 31, 1889.