Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/502

498 a powerful instrument in directly enhancing human health and happiness in a group of movements of which the New Thought and Christian Science may be mentioned as examples. These movements have passed the experimental stage and are proving potent means in preventing and curing disease and promoting personal peace and harmony. Again, health leagues, committees on national vitality, scientific studies in nutrition, the warfare against insects and a host of such movements are all working towards increased happiness and increased health. But now it is proposed to go still farther in promoting human welfare by the direct application of the laws of heredity to the improvement of the race. Eugenics is the name of this new science and its aim is to teach us to be not merely well nourished and well nurtured, but also well born. Eugenics is defined by Galton as the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally. In eugenics we see consciousness arriving at sufficient maturity to control race culture. The possibilities of this new science are unlimited.

The third direction in which intelligence is working to further the welfare of man is in social and political relations. Here the advances are too many and too rapid for any one to catalogue. One might recall such gains as the abolition of slavery, religious toleration, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of opportunity, the limitation or abandonment of the death penalty, the humanizing of prisons, the restriction of child labor, and the substitution of wise charity and helpfulness for injurious almsgiving. The rights of labor are now recognized and the whole laboring class more justly remunerated and accorded a position of dignity and respect. The rights of the workingman, his welfare and his comfort are secured by workingmen's unions, protective insurance, factory laws, eight-hour laws, pure food laws, free schools, free public libraries and many other agencies, while the general spirit of social progress and social improvement is shown by lend-a-hand movements, worth-while movements, Christian Endeavor societies, civic art clubs, the conservation movement, movements for the promotion of civic righteousness, of the square deal, and of universal peace, neighborhood and social centers, social surveys, social settlements, and kindred efforts having in view the greater happiness of all the people. In the event of famine, earthquakes or disasters of any kind in any part of the world, abundant charity cheerfully given and economically administered is immediately forthcoming. Finally, we are seeing the beginning of the custom of distributing colossal private fortunes in establishing and maintaining free public libraries, great educational and humanitarian institutions, and institutions for medical research and scientific investigations.

In particular there are four aspects of modern life and society which are distinctly optimistic. First, the elimination of fear. Second,