Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/300

 284 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

reason to congratulate the race on a decided general improvement in looks and figure. We have also undoubtedly improved in health and longevity ; but this may be due, as also the improvement in looks may be partly due, to improvement in the conditions of life. But with all this, with all these natural forces working untiringly, effectively, and imperceptibly for the improvement of the race, our whole aims as a social body, all our efforts, are directed to thwart this natural improvement, to reverse its action, and cause the race, not to endeavor to better its best, but to multiply its worst.

The whole tendency of the organized world has been to develop from the system of the production of a very numerous offspring ill fitted to survive, to the production of much fewer offspring better fitted to survive, and guarded at the expense of the parents until they were started in life. This law so permeates the world, and is so general, that it is even true of the higher and, lower planes of humanity. The better classes, the more educated, and those capable of greater self-denial, will not marry till they see their way to bring up children in health and comfort and give them a start in life. The lower class, without a thought for the morrow, the wastrels, the ignorant, the selfish and thoughtless, marry and produce children. Under the ordinary law of nature, of course, the natural result would follow : the children of the more desirable class, though fewer, would survive in greater proportion than the more numerous progeny of the less desirable class, and the race would not deteriorate. But here legislation, and, still worse, the so-called philanthropist, step in. Burdens are heaped upon the prudent ; they are taxed and bullied ; the means which they have denied themselves to save for their own children are taken from them and given to idle wastrels in order that their children may be preserved to grow up and reproduce their like. Not only are these children carefully maintained at the costs of the more prudent, but their wretched parents are fed and coddled also at the expense of the more worthy, and saved against themselves to produce more of the shall I call them kako- genetics. Not content with this, we freely import from the sweepings of Europe, and add them to our breeding-stock.

In the days when England made her greatness, she did not suffer from the cankers of wild philanthropy and a promiscuous alien immigration.

FROM PROFESSOR J. G. MCKENDRICK : I am sorry that, owing to university work, I am not able at present to contribute to the discussion of Mr. Galton's very suggestive papers. He is opening up a subject of great interest and importance more especially in its relation to improving the physical, mental, and pure qualities of the race. At present much is carried on by haphazard, and I fear the consequence is that we see indications of degeneration in various directions.

I heartily wish much success to those who are carrying on investigations of these important problems. We are all indebted to Mr. Galton for his valuable and deeply suggestive papers.

FROM MR. C. A. WITCHELL T : There is one factor operating in the selection of husbands and wives which will be extremely difficult to bring within the purview of eugenics, and which is yet supreme in its influence. The union of the sexes, in its higher form, is not a matter of passion, but of the more powerful and enduring sentiment which we call love. The capturing of mates is not confined to mankind ; the polygamous birds exhibit it. But there are birds that sing to win a mate these have a delayed courtship ; and in man this is developed to still nobler ideals.

Let a man look around him at a public ball. Would he choose for mother of his children the woman who of all present has the greatest physical attractions? Nothing of the kind. The one he chooses (by instinct) is the one who inspires him with a certain elevation of spiritual sentiment, who, indeed, freezes his physical nature out of his thought whom he could hardly pay a compliment to, and yet whom he knows he would select from among them all. Why does he choose her ? Has he not made selection through the assessors chosen by nature certain subtle and undefinable perceptions received through the senses of sight and hearing. These perceptions, fleet and instant messengers, have not been

7 Author of The Cultivation of Man.