It must have surprised you as it did myself to find the new word
‘Eugenics’ in the title both of the Boyle Lecture, delivered in Oxford
about a fortnight ago, and of this. It was an accident, not a deliberate
concurrence, and I accept it as a happy omen. The field of Eugenics is
so wide that there is no need for myself, the second lecturer, to plant
my feet in the footsteps of the first; on the contrary, it gives freedom
by absolving me from saying much that had to be said in one way or
another. I fully concur in the views so ably presented by my friend and
co-adjutor, Professor Karl Pearson, and am glad to be dispensed from
further allusion to subjects that formed a large portion of his lecture,
on which he is a far better guide and an infinitely higher authority
than myself.
In giving the following sketch of the history of Eugenics I am obliged
to be egotistical, because I kindled the feeble flame that struggled
doubtfully for a time until it caught hold of adjacent stores of
suitable material, and became a brisk fire, burning freely by itself,
and again because I have had much to do with its progress quite
recently.
The word ‘Eugenics’ was coined and used by me in my book _Human
Faculty_, published as long ago as 1883, which has long been out of
print; it is, however, soon to be re-published in a cheap form.[7] In it
I emphasized the essential brotherhood of mankind, heredity being to my
mind a very real thing; also the belief that we are born to act, and not
to wait for help like able-bodied idlers, whining for doles. Individuals
appear to me as finite detachments from an infinite ocean of being,
temporarily endowed with executive powers. This is the only answer I can
give to myself in reply to the perpetually recurring questions of ‘Why?
whence? and whither?’ The immediate ‘whither?’ does not seem wholly
dark, as some little information may be gleaned concerning the direction
in which Nature, so far as we know of it, is now moving—Namely, towards
the evolution of mind, body, and character in increasing energy and
co-adaptation.
I have often wondered that the poem of Hyperion, by Keats—that
magnificent torso of an incompleted work—has not been placed in the very
forefront of past speculations on evolution. Keats is so thorough that
he makes the very Divinities to be its product. The earliest gods such
as Coelus, born out of Chaos, are vague entities, they engender Saturn,
Oceanus, Hyperion, and the Titan brood, who supersede them. These in
their turn are ousted from dominion by their own issue, the Olympian
Gods. A notable advance occurs at each successive stage in the quality
of the Divinities. When Hyperion, newly terrified by signs of impending
overthrow, lies prostrate on the earth ‘his ancient mother, for some
comfort yet,’ the voice of Coelus from the universal space, thus
‘whispered low and solemn in his ear ... yet do thou strive, for thou
art capable ... my life is but the life of winds and tides, no more than
winds and tides can I prevail, but thou canst.’ I have quoted only
disjointed fragments of this wonderful poem, enough to serve as a
reminder to those who know it, but will add ten consecutive lines from
the speech of the fallen Oceanus to his comrades, which give a summary
of evolution as here described:
As Heaven and Earth are fairer, fairer far
Than Chaos and black Darkness, though once chiefs,
And as we show beyond that Heaven and Earth
In form and shape compact and beautiful,
In Will, in action free, companionship,
And thousand other signs of purer life;
So on our heels a fresh perfection treads
A power more strong in beauty, born of us
And fated to excel us, as we pass
In glory that old Darkness.
He ends with ‘this is the truth, and let it be your balm.’ The poem is a
noble conception, founded on the crude cosmogony of the ancient Greeks.
The ideas have long held my fancy that we men may be the chief, and
perhaps the only executives on earth. That we are detached on active
service with, it may be only illusory, powers of free-will. Also that we
are in some way accountable for our success or failure to further
certain obscure ends, to be guessed as best we can. That though our
instructions are obscure they are sufficiently clear to justify our
interference with the pitiless course of Nature, whenever it seems
possible to attain the goal towards which it moves, by gentler and
kindlier ways. I expressed these views as forcibly as I then could in
the above-mentioned book, with especial reference to improving the
racial qualities of mankind, where the truest piety seems to me to
reside in taking action, and not in submissive acquiescence to the
routine of Nature. It was thought impious at one time to attach
lightning conductors to churches, as showing a want of trust in the
tutelary care of the Deity to whom they were dedicated; now I think most
persons would be inclined to apply some contemptuous epithet to such as
obstinately refused, on those grounds, to erect them.
The direct pursuit of studies in Eugenics, as to what could practically
be done, and the amount of change in racial qualities that could
reasonably be anticipated, did not at first attract investigators. The
idea of effecting an improvement in that direction was too much in
advance of the march of popular imagination, so I had to wait. In the
meantime I occupied myself with collateral problems, more especially
with that of dealing measurably with faculties that are variously
distributed in a large population. The results were published in my
‘Natural Inheritance’ in 1889, and I shall have occasion to utilize some
of them later on, in this very lecture. The publication of that book
proved to be more timely than the former. The methods were greatly
elaborated by Professor Karl Pearson, and applied by him to Biometry.
Professor Weldon, of this University, whose untimely death is widely
deplored, aided powerfully. A new science was thus created primarily on
behalf of Biometry, but equally applicable to Eugenics, because their
provinces overlap.
The publication of _Biometrika_, in which I took little more than a
nominal part, appeared in 1901.
Being myself appointed Huxley Lecturer before the Anthropological
Institute in 1901 I took for my title ‘The possible improvement of the
Human Breed under the existing conditions of Law and Sentiment’
(_Nature_, November 1, 1901, _Report of the Smithsonian Institute,
Washington_, for the same year, and reprinted in this volume.)
The next and a very important step towards Eugenics was made by
Professor Karl Pearson in his Huxley Lecture of 1903 entitled ‘The Laws
of Inheritance in Man’ (_Biometrika_, vol. iii). It contains a most
valuable compendium of work achieved and of objects in view; also the
following passage (p. 159), which is preceded by forcible reasons for
his conclusions:
We are ceasing as a nation to breed intelligence as we did fifty
to a hundred years ago. The mentally better stock in the nation is
not reproducing itself at the same rate as it did of old; the less
able and the less energetic are more fertile than the better
stocks. No scheme of wider or more thorough education will bring
up, in the scale of intelligence, hereditary weakness to the level
of hereditary strength. The only remedy, if one be possible at
all, is to alter the relative fertility of the good and the bad
stocks in the community.
Again in 1904, having been asked by the newly-formed Sociological
Society to contribute a memoir, I did so on ‘Eugenics, its definition,
aim and scope.’ This was followed up in 1905 by three memoirs,
‘Restrictions in Marriage,’ ‘Studies in National Eugenics,’ and
‘Eugenics as a factor in Religion,’ which were published in the Memoirs
of that Society with comments thereon by more than twenty different
authorities (_Sociological Papers_, published for the Sociological
Society (Macmillan), vols. i and ii. These are re-published here). The
subject of Eugenics being thus formally launched, and the time appearing
ripe, I offered a small endowment to the University of London, to found
a Research Fellowship on its behalf. The offer was cordially accepted,
so Eugenics gained the recognition of its importance by the University
of London and a home for its study in University College. Mr. Edgar
Schuster, of this University, became Research Fellow in 1905, and I am
much indebted to his care in nurturing the young undertaking and for the
memoirs he has contributed, part of which must still remain for a short
time unpublished.
When the date for Mr. Schuster’s retirement approached it was advisable
to utilize the experience so far gained in reorganizing the Office.
Professor Pearson and myself, in consultation with the authorities of
the University of London, elaborated a scheme at the beginning of this
year, which is a decided advance, and shows every sign of vitality and
endurance. Mr. David Heron, a Mathematical Scholar of St. Andrew’s, is
now a Research Fellow; Miss Ethel Elderton, who has done excellent and
expert work from the beginning, is deservedly raised to the position of
Research Scholar; and the partial services of a trained Computer have
been secured. An event of the highest importance to the future of the
Office is that Professor Karl Pearson has undertaken, at my urgent
request, that general supervision of its work which advancing age and
infirmities preclude me from giving. He will, I trust, treat it much as
an _annexe_ to his adjacent biometric laboratory, for many studies in
Eugenics might, with equal propriety, be carried on in either of them,
and the same methods of precise analysis which are due to the
mathematical skill and untiring energy of Professor Pearson are used in
both. The Office now bears the name of the Eugenics Laboratory, and its
temporary home is in 88 Gower Street. (It is now, 1909, housed in the
University buildings.) The phrase ‘National Eugenics’ is defined as ‘the
study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the
racial qualities of future generations, either physically or mentally.’
The Laboratory has already begun to publish memoirs on its own account,
and I now rest satisfied in the belief that, with a fair share of good
luck, this young Institution will prosper and grow into an important
centre of research.