Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/299

 NOTES AND ABSTRACTS 283

FROM MRS. FAWCETT : Mr. Galton evidently realizes that he has a gigantic task before him, that of raising up a new standard of conduct on one of the most fundamental of human relations. At present, the great majority of men and women, otherwise conscientious, seem to have no conscience about their responsi- bility for the improvement or deterioration of the race. One frequently observes cases of men suffering from mortal and incurable disease who apparently have no idea that it is wrong to have children who will probably enter life heavily handi- capped by inherited infirmity.

Two-thirds of what is called the social evil would disappear of itself, if responsibility for the welfare of the coming generation found its fitting place in the conscience of the average man.

I wish all success to Mr. Francis Galton's efforts.

FROM MR. A. H. HUTH * : Everyone will sympathize with Mr. Galton in his desire to raise the human race. He is not the first, and he wil not be the last. Long ago the Spartans practiced what Mr. Galton has christened " eugenics ; " and in more modern times Frederick I of Prussia tried something of the sort. I have often thought that if the human race knew what was good for them, they would appoint some great man as dictator with absolute power for a time. At the expense of some pain to individuals, some loss of liberty for, say, one generation, what might not be done ! Preferably, they should choose me ; not because I think myself superior to others, but I would rather make the laws than submit myself to them 1

Mr. Galton shows very clearly, and, I think, indisputably, that people do submit to restrictions on marriage of very different kinds, much as if they were laws of nature. Hence the deduction is drawn that, since people submit, without, in most cases, a murmur, to restrictions which do not benefit the race, why not artificially produce the same thing in a manner that will benefit the race?

There are, however, two difficulties : One, the smaller, is that, in our present state of civilization, people will not accept, as they did in the childhood of their race, the doctrine of authority. The other is that all the restrictions on marriage cited by Mr. Galton, with the one exception of celibacy, to which I shall come later, only impeded, but did not prevent, marriage. Every man could marry under any of the restrictions, and only very few women could not lawfully be joined to him in matrimony.

Now, what is Mr. Galton's contention ? He wishes to hasten the action of the natural law of improvement of the race which works by selection. He wishes to do as breeders have done in creating superior races by the selection of mates. He recognizes that, unhappily, we cannot compel people to mate as the scientist directs : they must be persuaded to do so by some sort of creed, which, however, he does not (at least in this paper) expressly define. You could not make a creed that your choice of a wife should be submitted to the approval of a high-priest or of a jury. You would not, again, submit the question from a quasi-religious point of view to the like authorities, as to whether you are to marry at all or not. Mr. Galton does indeed point out that people were doomed to celibacy in religious communities : but here you have either a superior authority forcing you to take the vows, or you have the voluntary taking of the vows. Would the undesirable, the weak, the wicked, the frivolous any of those beings who ought not to propagate their species take these vows ? I fear not. Only the best, those who have strength of mind, the unselfish in short, only those who should propagate their species would take the vows with any prospect of respecting them.

I have said that Mr. Galton is seeking to hasten a natural process. We all know the Darwinian law of the selection of the fittest ; and also that other law of sexual selection which is constantly going on. I think that even within historical times they have told. I think that if you study the portraits which have come down to us (excluding, of course, the idealistic productions of the Greeks and some others), if you study even the prints of the grosser multitude, and then walk down any of the more populous streets of London, you will find that you have

8 Author of The Marriage of Near Kin.