Probability, the Foundation of Eugenics. The Herbert Spencer Lecture of 1907. By Francis Galton.
This lecture contains a very brief historical outline of the recent progress of eugenic enquiry and a simple discussion of the mathematical method of studying heredity. It must, of course, be read by every serious student.
National Life from the Standpoint of Science. (1905.) By Karl Pearson.
This is a reprint of a lecture delivered by Professor Pearson in 1900, together with some other valuable contributions of his to the subject. There is scarcely a better introduction to eugenics.
The Scope and Importance to the State of the Science of National Eugenics. The Robert Boyle Lecture, 1907. (Second edition, 1909.) By Karl Pearson.
This fine lecture should be carefully read. It gives some index to the quantity and quality of the work done by Professor Pearson and his followers since the Francis Galton Eugenics Laboratory was founded.
Population and Progress. (1907.) By Montague Crackanthorpe, K.C.
Though only published recently, part of this book goes back far. The first chapter is indeed a reprint of a eugenic article published in the Fortnightly Review as far back as 1872. Some of us may perhaps be inclined to forget that more than a generation ago Mr. Crackanthorpe had grasped the great truths which we are now trying to spread, and had courageously expressed them in the face of ignorance and prejudice even greater than those of to-day. This is unquestionably a book which every student must read, but the press generally, with some notable exceptions, have fought rather shy of it. It was sent to the present writer at his request from a leading morning paper which trusts him, and he wrote a column on it, most careful in diction and moderate in opinion, which was, nevertheless, not printed. One of the leading medical papers devoted a long article to the book, written on the general principle that it is right for a medical paper to differ from any non-medical person who approaches the closed neighbourhood of medical enquiry. Another leading medical paper considered Mr. Crackanthorpe's “ideal” to be “beyond present accomplishment,” and feared it must have “many generations of probation before it could hope to enter the sphere of practical politics.” I venture to say that Population and Progress, dealing, as it does, with a subject that really matters, contains more fundamental practical politics—in the true sense of that word—than has been discussed in most of our current newspapers since they were first established.
Race-Culture or Race-Suicide. (1906.) By R. R. Rentoul.
This is a second and enlarged edition of a remarkable pamphlet published by Dr. Rentoul in 1903 under the title Proposed Sterilisation of Certain Mental and Physical Degenerates. An Appeal to Asylum Managers and Others. Dr. Rentoul's own description of this pamphlet is as follows:—“In it I called attention to the large and increasing number of the insane in the United Kingdom; to our disgraceful system of child-marriages; to the growing suicide rate; to our disgusting system of inducing certain mentally and physically diseased persons to marry; and to a slight operation which I was the first to propose as a means of checking the increase in the number of the insane, and in preventing innocent offspring from being cursed by some parental blemish.”