The following Essays are re-printed in the chronological order of their
delivery. They will, therefore, help to show something of the progress
of Eugenics during the last few years, and to explain my own views upon
its aims and methods, which often have been, and still sometimes are,
absurdly misrepresented. The practice of Eugenics has already obtained a
considerable hold on popular estimation, and is steadily acquiring the
status of a practical question, and not that of a mere vision in Utopia.
The power by which Eugenic reform must chiefly be effected, is that of
Popular Opinion, which is amply strong enough for that purpose whenever
it shall be roused. Public Opinion has done as much as this on many past
occasions and in various countries, of which much evidence is given in
the Essay on Restrictions in Marriage. It is now ordering our acts more
intimately than we are apt to suspect, because the dictates of Public
Opinion become so thoroughly assimilated that they seem to be original
and individual to those who are guided by them. By comparing the current
ideas at widely different epochs and under widely different
civilizations we are able to ascertain what part of our convictions is
really innate and permanent, and what part has been acquired and is
transient.
It is above all things needful for the successful progress of Eugenics
that its advocates should move discreetly and claim no more efficacy on
its behalf than the future will confirm; otherwise a re-action will be
invited. A great deal of investigation is still needed to shew the limit
of practical Eugenics, yet enough has been already determined to justify
large efforts to instruct the public in an authoritative way, as to the
results hitherto obtained by sound reasoning, applied to the undoubted
facts of social experience.
My best thanks are due to the Editor of Nature, to the Council of the
Sociological Society, and to the Clarendon Press of Oxford, for
permission to reprint those among the following essays that first
appeared in their Publications.