Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 76.djvu/59

Rh The choice of methods must be governed by considerations of social welfare and individual happiness, and means must always vary with persons and circumstances.

The most radical remedy of all is proposed by McKim in his scheme of a lethal chamber. Since our one relic of the death penalty, however, in the case of murderers, is falling into disuse on excellent grounds, it is undesirable to suggest any such violent method of assisting evolution. Public opinion would be equally opposed to Plato's scheme of surreptitiously disposing of babies that failed to come up to specifications. Respect for human life as such has been established by society at too much sacrifice to admit of its being recklessly imperilledimperiled [sic].

Castration is too severe a penalty for general application, though perhaps advisable in cases of rape, but Eentoul's operation, a simple process by which sexuality is retained but sterility produced, has much in its favor. In Indiana such a method has been enacted, but in general it could not fail to meet with great opposition among voters and legislators.

The most practical method under present conditions seems to be compulsory segregation, already followed in prisons and reformatories and needing only to be extended and modified. Since the confinement of the proscribed classes ought to be made terminable only by old age or voluntary sterilization, humanity dictates that in many cases celibate isolation be substituted for imprisonment. It is advisable that islands be used for one-sex colonies, thus interfering less with the happiness and health of the defective persons, allowing some degree of self-support, and making it possible for ability in special directions to manifest itself. The great advantage of this method is that, while combining effective eugenics with far greater humanity than the present prison system, it would remove the more powerful influences for evil permanently from the environment of the next generation, thus accelerating social progress to a marvelous extent.

In the case of certain congenital defectives such as the deaf, it might be sufficient to prohibit marriage with blood-relations or with other similarly afflicted persons. Some of the congenitally blind, deaf and epileptic might even be allowed their liberty under parole to refrain from reproduction or under a suspended sentence of celibate isolation.

Our review of the projects of artificial selection has shown that deliberate breeding from the best is for the present impossible, as well as opposed to ethical and social progress, but that the prevention of breeding from the worst is both practicable and in accordance with the best present interest of society.

The direct action of the environment has been mentioned as, aside