Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 86.djvu/428

 of dragons’ teeth there must be in this terrible struggle; is it weakness to be afraid lest by and by, in the crop that springs from them, there be something worse than armed men?

If the war is sifting out from the possible parent-stock of the future a larger proportion of those who are relatively more fit from an evolutionary or eugenic point of view, what is possible in the way of counter-active? Among the revaluations after the war may we not expect some change of public sentiment in regard to eugenic ideals, some more marked disapproval of selfish forms of celibacy, some more cordial encouragement of those desirable people who marry chivalrously while it is still springtime with them, without waiting till the bridegroom has secured twice the income his father had? There is patriotism in dying for our country; there is a conceivable patriotism in marrying for her and in bearing children for her.

It is to be hoped that one of the results of the terrible struggle in which we are engaged will be to direct more serious and widespread attention to the falling birthrate and the risks involved. We must insist on a discovery of the facts and causes of the decline in the British birthrate, and on a full discussion of the possibilities of checking the decline differentially. There is need for more plasticity in the ideal of "getting on," but it can hardly be regarded as a bad sign that there appears to be continual increase in the number of parents of good type who keep their families small because they do not wish their children—especially the girls—to run the risk of thwarted and unhappy lives. These risks have to be lessened, and that without making slackness feasible. In another connection we are all agreed that the lowering of the still far too high death-rate among healthy infants must continue.

As to the marriage of recruits, which has been a good deal discussed, other than biological considerations must be borne in mind, but the general eugenic position should be one of approval, if the ages are suitable, if the records are good, and if there is a certainty of adequate state-provision for the possible widows and children—the three large "ifs," it will be noticed.

If the wastage of war is brought vividly home to us by dramatic tragedies and irreparable losses, it may be that we shall be led as a nation to consider with increased seriousness and discernment other forms of vital wastage to which we tend to become blunted by familiarity. It should be interesting to inquire whether some of these, such as tuberculosis and alcoholism, are not, in part, at least, dysgenic in their sifting.

Galton hoped that in course of time eugenic principles would come to be dominant motives in the nation, but this is still far off. It is our