It would certainly take a century to obtain any appreciable improvement in the quality of a race by this procedure, even if it were carried out in a methodical and general way. At the end of a few centuries our descendants might recognize the happiness that they owe to our efforts. They would also no doubt be astonished at being descended from such a race of barbarians, and at having so many drunkards, criminals and imbeciles among their ancestors. The mingling of mysticism in sexual life, which now exists under the name of religion, would appear to them almost the same as idolatry and the practice of "magicians" among savage races appears to us.
As to the effects of alcoholic drinks and prostitution, these would give them almost the same impression as the instruments of torture of the Middle Ages which we see exhibited in museums, or the horrors of the Inquisition, or burning at the stake for witchcraft.
Many of my readers will no doubt regard my comparisons as exaggerated or fanatical, because, imbued as we are with contemporary thought, we cannot, without a great effort of imagination and having at our disposal much experience and many objects of comparison, identify ourselves with the thought of the past or that of the future. I recommend persons who cannot appreciate this fact to read the "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," by Harriet Beecher-Stowe (not the novel itself). This book contains numerous documents relating to the time of negro slavery before the American war of secession. When they read what happened at that time, for example, advertisements in the public journals of dogs trained to track escaped slaves, they will perhaps agree with me. Pious pastors then gave their support to slavery, as they often do now to alcohol. What now appears to us as monstrous seemed then quite natural.
Reform in Education.—After human selection, I consider pedagogic reform in the sexual and other domains as the most important of positive reforms. (Vide Chapters XVII and XIII.) Although good quality in the germ is one of the fundamental conditions for man's happiness, it is not sufficient. Just as we can obtain by education comparatively useful individuals from comparatively defective germs, so can we more easily damage phylogenetically good germs, by evil influences during their ontogeny.
Society should devote all its care to the good general education of the body and mind of children. It should do everything possible to develop harmoniously the intelligence, sentiments, will, character, altruism and æsthetics, after the manner of the Landerziehungsheime, which we have described in Chapter XVII. Every good hereditary type should be given the opportunity for free expansion, by means of rational education and work.
With regard to individuals who are defective by heredity, their better dispositions might be developed up to a certain point and made to antagonize the bad dispositions, so that the latter should not predominate in the brain. (Vide Chapter XVII.)
In spite of the great importance of rational pedagogy, we must not forget that it is incapable of replacing selection. It serves for the immediate object, which is to utilize in the best possible way human material as it exists at present; but by itself it cannot in any way improve the quality of the future germ. It can, however, by instructing youth on the social value of selection, prepare it to put the latter in action.
UTOPIAN IDEAS ON THE IDEAL MARRIAGE OF THE FUTURE
The outward life of man is largely influenced by events of the moment; but his inner life is determined by memories of the past combined with heredity, and thus gives rise to efforts toward the future. The past should never be allowed to dominate the present or the future, but should combine past experience with new impressions, and constitute a prolific source of ideas and resolutions.
The marriage of the future pre-supposes people to be completely instructed from their childhood in natural sexual intercourse and its eventual dangers. It pre-supposes man brought up without alcohol or other narcotics, possessing the right to utilize the produce of his work for life and the maintenance of his own person, but not that of capitalizing for himself or his children, nor of making legacies to others, i.e., of founding by the aid of money a power for the exploitation of others. Everyone will know from his childhood that work is a necessary condition for the existence of all.