Page:Personal Beauty and Racial Betterment.djvu/64

 58 of civilization is the fact that it places a value on the individual where nature places value only on the species. The true type of natural valuation is illustrated by the bees, the male of which dies in the act of copulation, the female is discarded as soon as she ceases to produce eggs copiously, and the neuters are mere machines to care for the eggs and feed the queen and larvæ. That this sort of social organization is not good for man, however well it suits the bees, the Germans have impressively demonstrated. Although civilization evaluates individuals as such, regardless of the sort of offspring they produce, it dares not nullify the laws of nature beyond a certain limit, or it would commit suicide. The obvious compromise is to preserve the individual, whether a virile or weakling, but to prevent the weakling from reproducing. Thus both humanitarianism and racial needs are served.

Perhaps there are limits beyond which the preservation of the individual is undesirable. It seems not only useless but dangerous to preserve the incurably insane and the lower grades of feeble-minded, even when we consider the case from the individualistic point of view. When we estimate what the personal labor put into asylums and into institutions for feeble-minded, might accomplish if expended in the poorer districts of our cities in teaching the children who will be the parents