Eugenics is not a step in the dark. The theory is based on observation and its practice on a selection of the innumerable experiences of mankind. Since the first man married the first bride mankind has been unconsciously offering an accumulation of experiments in improvement, deterioration and stagnation of the race. It is only inexplicable reticence which has diverted man's study from these phenomena. Failure to appreciate relative values, the prejudice arising from a debased or immature morality, the bigotry of misunderstood religion and the dread of wounding prudish susceptibilities have led competent writers to devote to pigs and sheep volumes which should have had man for their subject. "The noblest study of mankind is man," but our naturalists have not advertised it sufficiently. Charles Darwin, whose powers of minute observation are admitted to have been supreme even by those who dispute his conclusions, recognised the racial bias against "the noblest study." Writing to A. R. Wallace in 1857 he said: "You ask whether I shall discuss 'man.' I think I shall avoid the subject, as so surrounded with prejudice; though I admit it is the highest and most interesting problem for the naturalist."
The old attempts to divide mankind into good and bad have failed beyond recall. The first lesson we can learn from a study of the past is to recognise the probably infinite variety of type which exists, not only in the attainments, but in the potentialities of various types of man and woman. We no longer wonder at differences of mentality when we know the variations in bodily form and structure. We see that some are capable of endurance, some are physically weak, some are almost leonine in strength. Each variation in strength may be united with differing degrees of other qualities, of sight, of motion, of temperament—there is no end to the combinations. We are well on the road to the elements of Eugenics when we have grasped two facts, the analysable distinctions between individuals, and the fact that broadly speaking a child is endowed with its essential characteristics from birth. The qualifications of the hereditary principle need not be set forth here. Darwin's theory is being modified in our day on important but not vital details. Eugenics is only interested in so far as we admit this broad generalisation to which no scholar of to-day would substantially demur.
We cannot in every case disentangle human characteristics with sufficient precision to warrant us in saying which combinations are desirable and which are undesirable. We can, however, get into our minds the idea that one good quality may be happily supplemented by another, or that certain characteristics might prove irreconcilable in combination. For instance strong sexuality allied to moral responsibility would prove an admirable combination, but the former quality in conjunction with weak mentality would work for certain ill. The marriage of near relations has been demonstrated to stereotype existent combinations, the evil is not as was once feared that the act was in itself categorically immoral and therefore followed by Nature's punishment. It amounted to the same thing in many cases because Nature's law is progress or retrogression; to stand still is to stultify the law of the universe. The highest and noblest physically, morally and mentally are the most complicated, and there is little danger that they will find their match amongst those with whom they are likely to marry. The risk of like marrying like is more inherently probable amongst the commonplace and mediocre. The danger becomes a terrible one when the lowest rung of the ladder is reached and it is here that intermarriage is most common if not invariable. The lowest degenerates, the most vulgar criminals the absolute failures, the "creatures who once were men" rarely have sexual unions of any sort or kind outside their own degraded circle. The unfit breed more of their kind and do not improve. The commonplace may by happy chance or on wise information mingle just those characteristics which raise the race to a higher level. The highest like those in the last category, may in the next generation lead to still higher heights or they may maintain their standard of efficiency, or their caste may sink to lower circles. In any of these cases of course there is the alternative that their race may be extinguished. All this is merely to state the case as it stands. There are few who dispute the facts, the Eugenic remedy is either not appreciated or it is ignored. It cannot be a subject of indifference whether the best types increase or the worst. It must matter to the race, it must seriously affect the present generation, it must be of increasing importance to each generation. Cruel, harsh, severe, repressive laws have been discarded as ineffective and inhuman. We cannot go back to an abortive policy which failed even a Torquemada. On the contrary we have repressed natural checks to population and must increasingly continue to do so wherever we discover new methods of foiling Nature's indiscriminate destructiveness. The stream of tendency cannot be dammed, we must adapt our social mill-wheels to the new channels which the river of time has cut in the fields of experience.
We must discard the old unscientific view of existence as an inexplicable riddle, of marriage as a lucky bag, of crime as a mere chance occurrence, of genius as a "sport," of events as casualties or accidents and of goodness as accessible to all and badness the deliberate choice of the wilful. A few years ago a well-known publisher exposed a huge poster advertising his encyclopædia. It was called "The Child; What will he become?" Two series of pictures were given, the top line indicating the gradual ascent of the child fortunate enough to read the encyclopædia. By easy stages he passed through the Sabbath school, emerged into the business office where he accumulated wealth and a cheerful countenance, he ascended into the paradise of benevolent baldness and appeared in the final picture a happy patriarch breathing out blessings and probably platitudes at every pore. Contrasted with these series, the bottom line pictorially followed the awful fate of the child who did not read this wonderful work. He deteriorated rapidly, first a pickpocket, then a forger, finally a murderer, and a drunkard all the time. This is the classic exaggeration of the unscientific view actually held by some well-meaning reformers. And if we ridicule this discredited theory of life why do we not frankly disavow the hopeless "reforms" which are the natural product of this haphazard view? We accept the doctrine on which Eugenics is based because all the facts conform it, but we continue to spend our time and money on methods of reform which have lost their root and now only cumber the ground.
The "points" of an animal have for ages been the subject of the breeders' successful efforts, but they are not more certainly inherited than are the form of a man's head, his stature, the colour of his eyes, and the length of his life, all of which are hereditary like the colour of a horse, the scent of a flower and the shape of an apple. Naturalists no more than farmers can with exactness predict that 173 live lambs will be born on one farm, that every flower of the same class will give equally abundant perfume, or that every fruit on the same tree will weigh just the same to an ounce. We are still more ignorant or at least equally ignorant about the exact results in a particular instance of the character of the individual offspring even when we are reasonably well acquainted with all its antecedents. We can say with certainty, however, as Dr. Karl Pearson says that "of all the children of a definite class of parents like A and B we can assert that a definite proportion will have a definite amount of any character of A and B, with a certainty as great as that of any scientific prediction whatever. I am not speaking from belief or from theory but simply from facts, from thousands of instances recorded by my fellow-workers or myself. Here is a great principle of life, something apparently controlling all life from its simplest to its most complex forms, and yet, though we too often see its relentless effects we go on hoping that at any rate we and our offspring shall be the exceptions to its rules. For one of us as an individual this may be true, but for the average of us all, for the nation as a whole, it is an idle hope. You cannot change the leopard's spots, and you cannot change bad stock to good; you may dilute it, but until it ceases to multiply, it will not cease to be." (National Life from the Standpoint of Science.) The reformer sees in these facts the basis of his highest hopes as certainly as he sees therein the condemnation of all attempts at reform which ignore these bed-rock truths. Permanent maintenance of good standards, gradual elimination of the hopelessly bad stock, and experimentation designed to utilise all the good elements on the border line between the desirable and the undesired—this is the Eugenist's programme in the immediate present. His ideal goes beyond this practicable programme, for the Eugenist aims at some final justification of Nature. Without worshipping Nature he desires to understand her processes and walk in harmony with her tendencies.
The most potent of all the beneficent influences in the organic world has been the law of Natural Selection. By "Law" of course we merely mean the observed invariable sequence of events, and whether or not this universe has a guiding Intelligence behind it, the "survival of the fittest" has taken its course by means of this particular law or process. It is impossible to deny that this selection has more often been instinctive than conscious. It is easy to predict that conscious intelligent selection may produce as real an improvement in the human race as has been obtained in the animal and vegetable kingdoms where man has so long directed the survival of the desired or elimination of undesired "points."
Patience, study, discrimination and courage are the principal weapons in the Eugenic armoury. With these qualities assured Eugenics may be trusted in the long run to outdistance all other competitors in the field of race improvement. Study is a sine qua non, because Eugenics means Probability based on Experience, and the more extensive our researches the safer our generalisations will be. Patience is needed because unlike other cures Eugenics will help the individual less than it will assist society, and it will always place the interests of the race first and foremost. Accordingly its cures will not be apparent in the current generation. This may discourage the unthinking, it will tire the hand-to-mouth reformer, the superficial will dismiss the whole thing as useless. Wisdom in discrimination will be essential because sometimes "the stone which the builders reject" has a way of becoming "the headstone of the corner." But when we have ascertained beyond reasonable doubt the qualities we want to preserve and the characteristics we desire to eliminate we must be courageous in the application of our remedy.
We look not only at the worst but also at the best when we ask ourselves can the Race be improved? The highest type of man known to men must be our model. We must constantly and actively believe that what man has been man may be. If mankind be truly one we are linked to the Grants as well as to the Guiteaus, to the saviours as well as to the assassins of society. Our kinship with the lowest must make us more merciful, our kinship with the highest may make us more ambitious to be contented with nothing short of the best.