Our age is now awakening, at last, to the cry of the children. The tendency of legislation and opinion in every civilised country is one and the same. For this humanitarianism let only him who thinks of any child as a brat refuse to give thanks. But it is the business of all who, whilst loving children and still in love with love, are yet acquainted with the principles of organic evolution—in short, the business of all humane men of science, men of science who have not ceased to be human—whilst aiding, abetting and directing this humanitarian effort by every means in their power, to teach and preach, in season and out of season, that unless meanwhile we make terms with the principle of selection, the choice of worth for parents, and the rejection of the unworthy, not as individuals but as parents, we shall assuredly breed for posterity, whose lives and happiness and moral welfare are in our hands, evils that can adequately neither be named nor numbered. Already, together with much blessed good, this indiscriminate humanitarianism has done much evil. Many of our most instant and, for this generation, insoluble problems are the lamentable fruit of this inherently good thing. The eugenist declares that this fruit is not necessary, that if it were necessary he could see no way out of our morass and would echo the half-wish of Huxley for some kindly comet that should put a term to human history altogether; and, in short, that only by the eugenic means can the humanitarian end be attained.
During the last year or two of the campaign against infant mortality many things have become clear, and none clearer than the fundamental compatibility between this campaign and the principles of eugenics. As these two efforts wall be predominant in the real politics of all the years to come, a few more words must here be devoted to the relation between them.
Granted that the highest of all objects is the making of worthy human beings, it is quite evident that we must attend equally to the two factors which determine all human life—heredity and environment. Eugenics stands for the principle of heredity—the principle that the right children shall be born. The campaign against infant mortality stands for a good environment[4]—so that children, when born, may survive and thrive. Obviously eugenics would be of no use if the children could not survive, and no human infant can survive unless it be born into a moral environment: no motherhood, no man. The two campaigns, then, are strictly complementary. We must endeavour to rid ourselves of the popular notion that the whole result of the campaign against infant mortality can be measured by the number of babies whose death is prevented. The infant mortality is merely an index of a widespread social disease—an index and an extreme symptom. But for every baby killed many are damaged; and to remove the causes of infant mortality is to remove the causes which at present effect the deterioration of millions of human beings. The eugenic campaign, then, without the other would be almost futile.
The time for eugenics.—On our principles the eugenic question can be decently raised only before conception. The unyoked germ-cells of any individual, though alive, are not entitled to claim protection from the principle that life is sacred. It is permitted to allow them to die; but from the moment of conception a new individual has been formed—a new living human individual, even though it only consists of a single cell, product of the union of the parental germ-cells: and we shall not be safe unless we regard this being as sacred and its destruction—except in order to save the life of the mother—as murder, even at this as at any later stage. If the eugenist should raise his voice, and say that this individual should not be born, he must be regarded exactly as if he were to recommend infanticide or the lethal chamber for unfit individuals. In such a case he would have entirely mistaken the whole principle of (negative) eugenics, which is not to elevate the race by the destruction of the unfit, at any stage, ante-natal or post-natal, but to do so by prohibiting the conception of the unfit. Directly the new human individual is formed the eugenic question is too late in that case. It is now the eugenist's duty, because it is every one's duty, to regard the new individual, whether born or yet unborn, as an end in himself or herself. But when the question arises whether that individual is to become a parent, then the eugenic question can and must be raised.
Circumstances might arise in which “case-law” might be applicable. It might be thought better to destroy the syphilitic child rather than allow it to come into the world. But we cannot make these distinctions. The question is simply one of expediency, and the only expedient thing is that there shall be no paltering with the principle that when a new human life is conceived our duty is to preserve it, whether it were conceived only twenty-four hours ago or whether it be a decrepit and helpless centenarian. The instant we let this principle go we are proposing to revert to Nature's method of keeping up the level of a race by murder. It is improper, then, for any one on eugenic grounds to protest against proposals for the arrest of infant mortality. He should have spoken sooner; at this stage he must hold his peace.
The two campaigns complementary.—Yet further: not only is it evident that the campaign against infant mortality (which is, in a word, the campaign for the provision of a proper environment for the young) is obviously necessary for the fulfilment of the eugenic ideal—since what would be the good of choosing the right parents if their children are then to be slain?—but it can be shown conversely that the object of those who are working against infant mortality can never be fully attained except by means of eugenics. Eugenics apart, we can and shall reduce the infant mortality to a mere fraction of what it is at present, by preventing the destruction of that great majority of babies who are born healthy. Even, however, when we have provided an ideal environment for every baby that comes into the world, we shall not have abolished infant mortality, since there will always remain a proportion, say ten per cent., whom not even an ideal environment can save. They should never have been conceived. At the Infantile Mortality Conference held in London in 1908, this was clearly recognised by more than one speaker. The maternalist must have the eugenist to help him if his ideal is to be attained.
Not only is the ideal of the two campaigns one and the same; not only is each necessary for the other, but their methods are the same. It is true that at first this was not evident, since when we began to fight against infant mortality many temporary expedients of no eugenic relevance were adopted, such as the crèche and the infant milk depot. But in the interval between the Conferences of 1906 and 1908 many things became clear: so that, whereas the papers at the first Conference were only accidentally connected, the programme of the second proceeded upon a principle—the principle of the supremacy of motherhood. We see now that the one fundamental method by which infantile mortality may be checked is by the elevation of motherhood. In the words of our President, Mr. John Burns, “you must glorify, dignify, and purify motherhood by every means in your power.” Thus the first two papers read at the first morning's meeting of the Conference—a brief paper by the present writer on “The Human Mother,” and an admirable paper by Miss Alice Ravenhill on “Education for Motherhood”—might equally well have been read at a Eugenics Conference. The opponent of infant mortality and the eugenist appeal to the same principle and avow the same creed: that parenthood is sacred, that it must not be casually undertaken, that it demands the most assiduous preparation of body and intellect and emotions. When, at last, these principles are believed and acted upon, infant mortality will be a thing of the past and national eugenics a thing of the present.
It is essential in this first general study of the subject to state the true nature of the relation between these two campaigns, to which every succeeding year of the present century will find more and more attention devoted. Between them they succeed in beginning at the beginning, and it would be a disaster, indeed, if they were incompatible. On the contrary, they are complementary and mutually indispensable. As the years go on they will engage between them the sympathy and the assistance of all serious people. In the year 1907 infant mortality was first named in a speech by a Prime Minister, and in that same year it was first mentioned in the Christmas-Day sermon at St. Paul's Cathedral; in that year also Parliament passed the Early Notification of Births Act, the first substantial legislative provision which sets our feet on the road towards the goal of a true national estimate of the value of parenthood. We are about to discover that the true politics is domestics, since there is no wealth but life and life begins at home. We are going to have the right kind of life born, and we are going to take care of it when it is born. We shall raise a generation which looks upon the ordinary money-changing politician as an impudent public nuisance, and the brutal, blood-stained Imperialist, shouting about the Empire which his very existence almost suffices to condemn, whilst he battens on the cannibal sale of alcoholic poison to babies and the mothers of future babies, as the very type of those traitors—they of its own household—who have helped to destroy every Empire in history. We propose to rebuild the living foundations of empire. To this end we shall preach a New Imperialism, warning England to beware lest her veins become choked with yellow dirt, and demanding that over all her legislative chambers there be carved the more than golden words, “There is no Wealth but Life.”