Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 76.djvu/68

64 should be added the interference with sexual selection brought about by a standing army and navy, through which a large proportion of picked men are, for the best period of their lives, placed in an environment where immorality thrives and marriage is discouraged, if not absolutely excluded. The movement toward universal disarmament thus comes into eugenic favor, and, even at present, some reform might be effected by the abandonment of the practise of isolation of troops and the permission of soldiers to reside out of barracks, responding to roll-call at definite hours.

Among the many evils that follow in the train of sexual immorality may be mentioned the hindrance to sexual selection of the highest sort brought about by the corruption of the emotional nature, by which a man's choice when he eventually marries is likely to be far inferior to that which otherwise might have been possible for him. Here, once more, therefore, eugenics gives its hearty support to all movements for the raising of public morality.

A change in social values as to reputability and honor is greatly needed for the better working of sexual selection. The conspicuous waste and leisure that Veblen points out as our chief criterion of reputability have no necessary connection with mental or moral qualities, and, in the present somewhat illogical inequality of distribution, do not always bear a direct ratio even to the traits that make for genuine economic progress. On the other hand, the fact that the insignia of success are too often awarded to trickery, callousness and luck does not argue the abolishing of these signs altogether in favor of a "dead level" of egalitarianism. Distinctions, if rightly awarded, are an aid, rather than a hindrance, to selection, and effort should be directed no less to the proper recognition of true superiority than to the moderation of our excessive social differences.

Galton has devised a definite, if matter-of-fact method of establishing a better standard of social esteem. This is a plan of issuing certificates to such young persons as would voluntarily present themselves for examination and decimal evaluation, those reaching a higher standard to form a social elite naturally sought after as desirable husbands or wives. Though this scheme would be far from infallible, owing to the elusive nature of many characteristics, the difficulty of allowance for growth, and our ignorance of the exact laws of heredity, such a true aristocracy, would certainly possess great advantages over the present classifications of The Four Hundred, Daughters of the Revolution, hereditary nobility and social cliques. Even its somewhat humorous deficiency in romanticism arises largely from its novelty, since idyllic love seems to have survived the equally unpoetic institutions of the dowry, the license and the divorce regulations.

Valuable as are these suggestions, however, no mere device can ever