Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/33

 EUGENICS 21

which the "upper" are continually recruited? Until the economically "lower classes " are analyzed in such detail as will enable us to eliminate what is due to bad environment, we cannot come to final conclusions on the relative fertility or infertility of " upper " or " lower." Until such an analysis is made, we cannot well assume that the difference in fertility is in any degree due to funda- mental biological differences or modifications. Dr. Noel Paton has recently shown that starved mothers produce starved offspring and that well-fed mothers produce well-fed offspring. In his particular experiment with guinea pigs the numbers of offspring were unaffected. If this experiment should be verified on the large scale, it would form some ground for doubting whether the mere increase of comfort directly produces biological infertility. The capacity to reproduce may remain ; but reproduction may be limited by a different ethic. The universal fall in the birth-rate has been too rapid to justify simpliciter the conclusion that biological capacity has altered.

When the public-health organizations have succeeded in extirpating the grosser evils of environment, they will, it is hoped, proceed to deal more inti- mately with the individual. In the present movement for the medical examina- tion and supervision of school children we have an indication of great developments. If to the relatively coarse methods of practical hygienics we could now add the precision of anthropometry, we should find ready to hand in the schools an unlimited quantity of raw material. We might even hope to add some pages to the " golden book " of " thriving families." Incidentally, one might suggest a minor inquiry : Of the large thriving families, do the older or the middle or the younger members show, on the average, the greater ultimate capacity for civic life? My impression is that, in our present social conditions, the middle children are likely to show the highest percentage of total capacity. This is a mere impression, but it is worth putting to the test of facts.

To the worker in the fighting line, as the public-health officer must always regard himself, Dr. Galton's suggestions come with inspiration and light.

BY G. BERNARD SHAW.

I agree with the paper, and go so far as to say that there is now no reasonable excuse for refusing to face the fact that nothing but a eugenic religion can save our civilization from the fate that has overtaken all previous civilizations.

It is worth pointing out that we never hesitate to carry out the negative side of eugenics with considerable zest, both on the scaffold and on the battlefield. We have never deliberately called a human being into existence for the sake of civilization : but we have wiped out millions. We kill a Tibetan regardless of expense, and in defiance of our religion, to clear the way to Lhassa for the Englishman ; but we take no really scientific steps to secure that the Englishman when he gets there, will be able to live up to our assumption of his superiority.

It is quite true, as the lecturer suggests, that the violent personal preferences on which most plays and novels are founded are practically negligible forces in society. They can be, and are, circumscribed by political and social institutions as successfully as the equally violent antipathies which lead to murder. In spite of all the romancers, men and women are amazingly indiscriminate and promiscuous in their attachments : they select their wives and husbands far less carefully than they select their cashiers and cooks. In the countries where they are not allowed to select at all, but have their marriages arranged for them wholly by their parents, the average result seems to be much the same as that of our own more promiscuous plan of letting people marry according to their fancies. In short, for all sociological purposes, it may safely be assumed that people are not particular as to whom they marry, provided they do not lose caste by the alliance. But we must not infer from this that they will tolerate any interference with their domestic life once they are married. Political marriages are perfectly practicable as far as the church door ; but once the register is signed there is an end of all public considerations. If the selection is eugenically erroneous, there is no remedy. If it is so brilliantly successful that it seems a national loss to limit the husband's progenitive capacity to the breeding capacity of one woman, or the