What is possible?—This, of course, is speculation and of no immediate value. I would merely remind the reader that the doctrine of optimism, as regards the future of mankind, which the principles of race-culture assume and which they desire to justify, was definitely shared by the great pioneers to whom we owe our understanding of those principles. Notwithstanding grave nervous disorder, such as makes pessimists of most men, both Darwin and Spencer were compelled by their study of Nature to this rational optimism as regards man's future. The doctrine of organic evolution, and of the age-long ascent of man through the selection of the fittest (who have, on the whole, been the best) for parenthood, is one not of despair but of hope. Exactly half a century ago it struck horror into the minds of our predecessors. Man, then, is only an erected ape, they thought—as if any historical doctrine, however true, could shorten the dizzy distance to which man has climbed since he was simian: and man being an ape, they thought his high dreams palpably vain. But the measure of the accomplished hints at the measure of the possible, and the value of the historical facts lies not in themselves, all facts as such being as dead as are the individual atoms of the living body, but in the principles which grow out of them. It is of no importance as such that man has simian ancestors; it is of immeasurable importance that he should learn by what processes he has become human, and by what, indeed, they became simian—which would have been a proud adjective for its own day. The principles of organic progress matter for us because they are the principles of race-culture, the only sure means of human progress. Our looking backwards does not turn us into pillars of salt, but teaches us that the best is yet to be, and how alone it is to be attained.
Elsewhere the optimistic argument of Wordsworth is quoted. Hear also John Ruskin:—
“There is as yet no ascertained limit to the nobleness of person and mind which the human creature may attain, by persevering observance of the laws of God respecting its birth and training.”[85]
and Herbert Spencer:—
“What now characterises the exceptionally high may be expected eventually to characterise all. For that which the best human nature is capable of, is within the reach of human nature at large.”[86]
and Francis Galton:—
“There is nothing either in the history of domestic animals or in that of evolution to make us doubt that a race of sane men may be formed, who shall be as much superior, mentally and morally, to the modern European, as the modern European is to the lowest of the Negro races.
“It is earnestly to be hoped that enquiries will be increasingly directed into historical facts, with the view of estimating the possible effects of reasonable political action in the future, in gradually raising the present miserably low standard of the human race to one in which the Utopias in the dreamland of philanthropists may become practical possibilities.”[87]
Conclusion—Eugenics and Religion.—In an early chapter it was attempted to show that eugenics is not merely moral, but is of the very heart of morality. We saw that it involves taking no life, that, rather, it desires to make philanthropy more philanthropic, that, at any rate so far as this eugenist is concerned, it recognises and bows to the supreme law of love: and claims to serve that law, and the ideal of social morality, which is the making of human worth. Eugenics may or may not be practicable, it may or may not be based upon natural truth, but it is assuredly moral: though I, for one, would proclaim eternal war between this real morality and the damnable sham which approves the unbridled transmission of the most hideous diseases, rotting body and soul, in the interests of good.