The prophet of that kind of Imperialism which has destroyed so many Empires, has lately approved the emigration of our best to the Colonies, on the ground that “it is good to give the second eleven a chance.” But as students of history know, it is at the heart that Empires rot. The case of Ireland is at present an insoluble one because the emigration of the worthiest has had full sway. So with the agricultural intellect: the “first eleven” having gone to the towns. Rome sent her “first eleven” to her Colonies: if you were not good enough to be a Roman soldier you could at least remain and be a Roman father: and the children of such fathers perished in the downfall of the Empire which they could no longer sustain. I can imagine no more foolish or disastrous advice than this of Mr. Kipling's, in commending that transportation of the worthiest which, thoroughly enough persisted in, must inevitably mean our ruin.
The national aspect of eugenics suggests its international aspect, and its inter-racial aspect. Not having spent six weeks rushing through the United States, I am unfortunately dubious as to the worth of any opinions I may possess regarding the most urgent form of this question to-day. I mistrust not merely the brilliant students who, unhampered by biological knowledge, pierce to the bottom of this question in the course of such a tour, but also the humanitarian bias of those who, like M. Finot, or the distinguished American sociologist, Mr. Graham Brooks, would almost have us believe that the negro is mentally and morally the equal of the Caucasian. Least of all does one trust the vulgar opinions of the man in the street. Wisdom on this matter waits for the advent of real knowledge. Similarly in the matter of Caucasian-Mongolian unions. I question whether any living man knows enough to warrant the expression of any decided opinion on this subject. Merely I here recognise miscegenation in general as a problem in eugenics, to which increasing attention must yearly be devoted. But it would have been ridiculous to attempt to deal with that great subject here. As for the marriage of cousins, to take the opposite case, I always reply to the question, “Should cousins marry?” that it depends upon the cousins. The good qualities of a good stock, the bad qualities of a bad stock, are naturally accentuated by such unions: I doubt whether there is much more to be said about them.
In the following general study of a subject to which no human affair is wholly alien, it has been impossible to deal adequately with the great question of eugenic education—that is to say, education as for parenthood. If only to emphasise its overwhelming importance, one must here insist upon the argument. There is, I believe, no greater need for society to-day than to recognise that education must include, must culminate in, preparation for the supreme duty of parenthood. This involves instruction regarding those bodily functions which exist not for the body nor for the present at all, but for the future life of mankind. The exercise of these functions depends upon an instinct which I have for some time been in the habit of terming the racial instinct—a name which at once suggests to us that we are to represent this instinct, to the boy or girl at puberty, not as something the satisfaction of which is an end in itself—that is the false and degrading assertion which will be made by the teachers whom youth will certainly find, if we fail in our duty—but as existing for what is immeasurably higher than any selfish end. Youth must be taught that it is for man the self-conscious, “made with such large discourse, looking before and after,” as Hamlet says, to deal with his instincts in terms of their purpose, as no creature but man can do. The boy and girl must learn that the racial instinct exists for the highest of ends—the continuance and ultimate elevation of the life of mankind. It is a sacred trust for the life of this world to come. We must teach our boys what it is to be really “manly”—the fine word used by the tempter of youth when he means “beast-ly.” To be manly is to be master of this instinct. And the “higher education” of our girls, as we must teach ourselves, will be lower, not higher, if it does not serve and conserve the future mother, both by teaching her how to care for and guard her body, which is the temple of life to come, and how afterwards to be a right educator of her children. The leading idea upon which one would insist is that the key to any of the right and useful methods of eugenic education is to be found in the conception of the racial instinct as existing for parenthood, and to be guarded, reverenced, educated for that supreme end. It is for the reader who may be responsible for youth of either sex with this key to solve the problem on the lines best suited to his or her particular case.
By the application of mathematical methods to statistics we can ascertain their real meaning, if they have any. If, as frequently happens, they have none, mathematical analysis is worse than useless. Mr. Galton is the pioneer of this study, which Professor Karl Pearson has named biometrics. Biometrics is not eugenics, as some have supposed, but is a branch of scientific enquiry which, like genetics, obstetrics and many more, contributes to the foundations of eugenics. In the Appendix reference is made to various publications, mostly inexpensive, which deal with biometrics. In the text I have availed myself of biometric, genetic and other results impartially. Differences of opinion between this school and that of scientific workers are to be regretted by the eugenist; but it is for him to accept and use knowledge of eugenic significance no matter by what method it has been obtained. Directly he fails to do so he ceases to be a eugenist and becomes the ordinary partisan. No reference is made in the following pages, for instance, to the law of ancestral inheritance, formulated by the Master to whom the volume is dedicated and of whom all eugenists are the followers. I believe that law, despite its beauty, to be without basis in fact and incompatible with demonstrated Mendelian phenomena: and though the book is dedicated to Mr. Galton, it is more deeply dedicated to the Future. This, indeed, is the Credo of the eugenist: Expecto resurrectionem mortuorum, et vitam venturi saeculi.
Woman is Nature's supreme instrument of the future. The eugenist is therefore deeply concerned with her education, her psychology, the conditions which permit her to exercise her great natural function of choosing the fathers of the future, the age at which she should marry, and the compatibility between the discharge of her incomparable function of motherhood and the lesser functions which some women now assume. Obstetrics, and the modern physiology and psychology of sex, must thus be harnessed to the service of eugenics, and I hope to employ them for the elucidation, in a future volume, of the problems of woman and womanhood, thus regarded.