The ideas have long held my fancy that we men may be the chief, and perhaps the only executives on earth. That we are detached on active service with, it may be only illusory, powers of free-will. Also that we are in some way accountable for our success or failure to further certain obscure ends, to be guessed as best we can. That though our instructions are obscure they are sufficiently clear to justify our interference with the pitiless course of Nature, whenever it seems possible to attain the goal towards which it moves, by gentler and kindlier ways. I expressed these views as forcibly as I then could in the above-mentioned book, with especial reference to improving the racial qualities of mankind, where the truest piety seems to me to reside in taking action, and not in submissive acquiescence to the routine of Nature. It was thought impious at one time to attach lightning conductors to churches, as showing a want of trust in the tutelary care of the Deity to whom they were dedicated; now I think most persons would be inclined to apply some contemptuous epithet to such as obstinately refused, on those grounds, to erect them.
The direct pursuit of studies in Eugenics, as to what could practically be done, and the amount of change in racial qualities that could reasonably be anticipated, did not at first attract investigators. The idea of effecting an improvement in that direction was too much in advance of the march of popular imagination, so I had to wait. In the meantime I occupied myself with collateral problems, more especially with that of dealing measurably with faculties that are variously distributed in a large population. The results were published in my ‘Natural Inheritance’ in 1889, and I shall have occasion to utilize some of them later on, in this very lecture. The publication of that book proved to be more timely than the former. The methods were greatly elaborated by Professor Karl Pearson, and applied by him to Biometry. Professor Weldon, of this University, whose untimely death is widely deplored, aided powerfully. A new science was thus created primarily on behalf of Biometry, but equally applicable to Eugenics, because their provinces overlap.
The publication of Biometrika, in which I took little more than a nominal part, appeared in 1901.
Being myself appointed Huxley Lecturer before the Anthropological Institute in 1901 I took for my title ‘The possible improvement of the Human Breed under the existing conditions of Law and Sentiment’ (Nature, November 1, 1901, Report of the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, for the same year, and reprinted in this volume.)
The next and a very important step towards Eugenics was made by Professor Karl Pearson in his Huxley Lecture of 1903 entitled ‘The Laws of Inheritance in Man’ (Biometrika, vol. iii). It contains a most valuable compendium of work achieved and of objects in view; also the following passage (p. 159), which is preceded by forcible reasons for his conclusions:
We are ceasing as a nation to breed intelligence as we did fifty to a hundred years ago. The mentally better stock in the nation is not reproducing itself at the same rate as it did of old; the less able and the less energetic are more fertile than the better stocks. No scheme of wider or more thorough education will bring up, in the scale of intelligence, hereditary weakness to the level of hereditary strength. The only remedy, if one be possible at all, is to alter the relative fertility of the good and the bad stocks in the community.
Again in 1904, having been asked by the newly-formed Sociological Society to contribute a memoir, I did so on ‘Eugenics, its definition, aim and scope.’ This was followed up in 1905 by three memoirs, ‘Restrictions in Marriage,’ ‘Studies in National Eugenics,’ and ‘Eugenics as a factor in Religion,’ which were published in the Memoirs of that Society with comments thereon by more than twenty different authorities (Sociological Papers, published for the Sociological Society (Macmillan), vols. i and ii. These are re-published here). The subject of Eugenics being thus formally launched, and the time appearing ripe, I offered a small endowment to the University of London, to found a Research Fellowship on its behalf. The offer was cordially accepted, so Eugenics gained the recognition of its importance by the University of London and a home for its study in University College. Mr. Edgar Schuster, of this University, became Research Fellow in 1905, and I am much indebted to his care in nurturing the young undertaking and for the memoirs he has contributed, part of which must still remain for a short time unpublished.
When the date for Mr. Schuster’s retirement approached it was advisable to utilize the experience so far gained in reorganizing the Office. Professor Pearson and myself, in consultation with the authorities of the University of London, elaborated a scheme at the beginning of this year, which is a decided advance, and shows every sign of vitality and endurance. Mr. David Heron, a Mathematical Scholar of St. Andrew’s, is now a Research Fellow; Miss Ethel Elderton, who has done excellent and expert work from the beginning, is deservedly raised to the position of Research Scholar; and the partial services of a trained Computer have been secured. An event of the highest importance to the future of the Office is that Professor Karl Pearson has undertaken, at my urgent request, that general supervision of its work which advancing age and infirmities preclude me from giving. He will, I trust, treat it much as an annexe to his adjacent biometric laboratory, for many studies in Eugenics might, with equal propriety, be carried on in either of them, and the same methods of precise analysis which are due to the mathematical skill and untiring energy of Professor Pearson are used in both. The Office now bears the name of the Eugenics Laboratory, and its temporary home is in 88 Gower Street. (It is now, 1909, housed in the University buildings.) The phrase ‘National Eugenics’ is defined as ‘the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, either physically or mentally.’
The Laboratory has already begun to publish memoirs on its own account, and I now rest satisfied in the belief that, with a fair share of good luck, this young Institution will prosper and grow into an important centre of research.