4. Humanistic religion. This is a willingness to make the end of ethics the totality of happiness of all men, or some large group of men, rather than to judge conduct solely by its effects on some one individual. At its highest, it is a sort of loyalty to the species.
It must be noted that most cults include more than one of these elements—usually all of them at various stages. As a race rises in intelligence, it tends to progress from the first two toward the last two, but usually keeping parts of the earlier attitude, more or less clearly expressed. And individual adherents of a religion usually have different ideas of its scope; thus the religious ideas of many Christians embrace all four of the above elements; others who equally consider themselves Christians may be influenced by little more than (4) alone, or (3) alone, or even (2) alone.
There is no reason to believe that any one of these types of religion is the only one adapted to promoting sound ethics in all individuals, nor that a similar culture can bring about uniformity in the near future, since the religion of a race corresponds to some extent to the inherent nature of the mind of its individuals. Up to a certain point, each type of religion has a distinct appeal to a certain temperament or type of mind. With increasing intelligence, it is probable that a religion tends to emphasize the interests of all rather than the benefits to be derived by one; such has been clearly the case in the history of the Christian religion. The diverse elements of retribution, damnation, "communion with God" and social service still exist, but in America the last-named one is yearly being more emphasized. Emphasis upon it is the marked characteristic of Jesus' teaching.
With this rough sketch of religious ideas in mind, the part religion can play at the present day in advancing the eugenic interests of the race or species may be considered. Each religion can serve eugenics just as well as it can serve any other field of ethics, and by the very same devices. We shall run over our four types again and note what appeals eugenics can make to each one.
1. Reward and punishment in this life. Here the value of children, emotionally and economically, to their parents in their later life can be shown, and the dissatisfaction that is felt by the childless. The emotions may be reached (as they have been reached in past centuries) by the painting of Madonnas, the singing of lullabies, by the care of the baby sister, by the laurel wreath of the victorious son, by the great choruses of white-robed girls, by the happiness of the bride, and by the sentiment of the home. Here are some of the noblest subjects for the arts, which in the past have unconsciously served eugenics well. In a less emotional way, a deep desire for that "terrestrial immortality" involved in posterity should be fostered. The doctrine of the continuity of germ-plasm might play a large part in religion. It should at least be brought home to everyone at some point in his education. Man should have a much stronger feeling of identity with his forebears and his progeny. Is it not a loss to Christians that they have so much less of this feeling than the Chinese?
It may be urged in opposition that such conceptions are dangerously static and have thereby harmed China. But that can be avoided by shifting the balance a little from progenitors to posterity. If people should live more in their children than they now do, they would be not only anxious to give them a sound heredity, but all the more eager to improve the conditions of their children's environment by modifying their own.
It may be objected that this sort of propaganda is indiscriminate,—that it may further the reproduction of the inferior just as much as the superior. We think not. Such steps appeal more to the superior type of mind and will be little heeded by the inferior. They will be ultimately, if not directly, discriminative.
In so far as the foregoing appeals to reason alone it is not religion. The appeal to reason must either be emotionalized or colored with the supernatural to be religion.
2. Reward and punishment in a future life. Here the belief in the absolute, verbal inspiration of sacred writings and the doctrine of salvation by faith alone are rapidly passing, and it is therefore the easier to bring eugenics into this type of religion. Even where salvation by faith is still held as an article of creed, it is accompanied by the concession that he who truly believes will manifest his belief by works. Altruism can be found in the sacred writings of probably all religions, and the modern tendency is to make much of such passages, in which it is easy for the eugenist to find a warrant. What is needed here, then, is to impress upon the leaders in this field that eugenic conduct is a "good work" and as such they may properly include it along with other modern virtues, such as honest voting and abstinence from graft as a key to heaven. Dysgenic conduct should equally be taught to be an obstacle to salvation.
3. Theism. The man who is most influenced by the desire to be at one with God naturally wants to act in accordance with God's plan. But God being omnibeneficent, he necessarily believes that God's plan is that which is for the best interests of His children—unless he is one of those happily rare individuals who still believe that the end of man is to glorify God by voice, not by means of human betterment.