The case of the eugenics propaganda is far more complex. In its origin, and doubtless in some of its present manifestations, it may lay claim to being directed toward aims which are particularly concerned with the higher interests of life. The author of “Hereditary Genius” certainly could not be accused of indifference to the part played in the past, or to be played in the future, by exceptional minds and characters; nor is it necessary to charge any of the present promoters of the propaganda with explicit failure to appreciate the importance of such minds and characters. The criticism is often made, from this standpoint, that the hard-and-fast rules which the eugenists propose would, in point of fact, have put under the ban some of the most illustrious names in the annals of mankind—men whose genius was accompanied with some of the very traits which they hold should most positively be prevented from appearing. But, however weighty this objection to the methods of eugenics may be, it is to be looked upon rather as an item on the debit side of the reckoning than as marking an ingrained defect, a fault at the very heart of the matter. The eugenists may well challenge those who urge merely this kind of objection to show that the losses thus pointed out are great enough to offset the gains, in the very same direction, which they regard their program as promising. Whatever the truth of the matter may be, they can at least set up the contention that, as a mere affair of quantity, genius will do better under their system than without it.
What brings the eugenics movement into the Flatland category is not its attitude toward the question of genius, or perhaps even of singularity, but its attitude toward the life of mankind as a whole—if indeed it can be said to have [pg 66]any attitude toward the life of mankind as a whole. The profound elements of that life seem not to come at all within the range of its contemplation. Of course this does not apply to everything that comes from the eugenics camp, nor to every person that calls himself a eugenist. But on the other hand it is by no means only of the crude projects of half-educated reformers, or the outgivings of the prophets of our popular magazines, that it is true. The agitation has derived much of its impetus, directly or indirectly, from the teachings of men of high scientific eminence who have attacked the question without any apparent realization of its deeper bearings on the whole character of human life. This influence often comes in the shape of exhortations, or suggestions, addressed to the public at a time when attention is centered upon some conspicuous crime or some particular phase of evil in the community; sweeping and radical regulation of the right of parenthood being urged as necessary for the prevention of all such distressing phenomena. Thus, after the attempted assassination of Mayor Gaynor, there was much talk of a “national campaign for mental hygiene,” which should have the effect of “preventing Czolgoszes and Schranks.” Its program was thus indicated by one of the foremost professors of medicine in the United States:
Provision must be made for the birth of children whose brains shall, so far as possible, be innately of good quality; this means the denial of the privilege of parenthood to those likely to transmit bad nervous systems to their offsprings.
What the carrying out of such a programme would mean to mankind at large, how profoundly it would modify those ideas about life, those standards of human dignity and human rights, which are so fundamental and so pervasive that they are taken for granted without express thought in every act and every feeling of all normal men and women—this does not seem ever to trouble the mind of the devotee of universal regulation. He sees the possibility [pg 67]of effecting a certain definite and measurable improvement; that the means by which this is accomplished must fatally impair those elemental conceptions of human life whose value transcends all measurement, he has not the insight or the imagination to recognize. The distinctions of social class, of wealth, of public honor, leave untouched the equality of men in the fundamentals of human dignity. They do not go to the vitals of self-respect; they do not interfere with a man’s sense of what is due to him, and what is due from him, in the primary relations of life. If nature has been unkind to him in his physical or mental endowments, he does not therefore feel in the least disqualified, as regards his family, his friends, his neighbors, the stranger with whom he chances to come into contact, from receiving the same kind of consideration, in the essentials of human intercourse, that is accorded to those who are more fortunate; nor does he feel in any respect absolved from the duty of playing the full part of a man. Under the régime of medical classification—and the “mental hygiene” programme can mean nothing less than that—all this would disappear. Some men would be men, others would be something less. It is true that, so far as regards the imbecile, the insane, and the criminal, such a state of things obtains as it is; but this stands wholly apart from the general life of the race, and has no influence whatever on the habitual feelings and experiences of human beings. The normal life of mankind is shot through and through with the idea that a man’s a man; all that is highest in feeling and conduct is closely bound up with it. Lessen its sway over our feelings and thoughts and instincts, and how much benefit in the shape of “preventing Czolgoszes and Schranks” would be required to compensate for the loss in nobleness, in depth, which human life would suffer?
The prohibition movement belongs, in the main, to a wholly different order of things. The fight against the [pg 68]evils of drink, as it has been carried on for a century or more, has been animated by a moral fervor which classes it rather with the fight against slavery, or with the great revivals of religion, than with those movements which owe their origin to a calculating and cold-blooded perfectionism. Its leaders have been fired with the ardor of a war directed against a devastating monster, to whose ravages was to be ascribed a large part of the misery and wickedness that afflict mankind. It is true that the economic and physiological aspects of the drink question were not ignored; the total-abstinence men were glad enough to have this second string to their bow. But the real fight was not against alcohol as one of many things concerning which the habits of men are more or less unwise; it was a fight against the Demon Rum, the ally of all the powers of darkness. The plea of the moderate drinker was rejected with scorn, not because there was any objection to moderate drinking in itself, but because total abstinence was the only true preventive of drunkenness, and drunkenness must be stamped out if mankind was to be saved. The moderate drinker was censured not because he was wasting his money, or failing to “conserve his efficiency,” but because for the sake of a trivial self-indulgence he was giving countenance to a practice which was consigning millions of his fellow men to wretchedness in this world and to everlasting damnation in the next.
Now this remarkable thing about the present extraordinary manifestation of growth and strength in the prohibition movement is that it is not in the least due to a strengthening of this sentiment. On the contrary, it is safe to say that feeling about drunkenness, about the drink evil in the sense in which it was understood a generation ago, is far less intense than it was then. The prohibition movement in its present stage is not the old prohibition movement advancing to triumph through the onward march of its proselyting zeal; of true prohibitionist zealots the number is probably less, in proportion to the [pg 69]population, than it was forty years ago. Its great accession of strength has come from the growth of that order of ideas which is common to all the “efficiency” movements of the time. And that growth helps it in two ways. On the one hand, to the little army of crusaders against the Demon Rum there has come the accession of a host of men who are not thinking about demons at all, but who calmly hold that the world would be better off without drinking, and that this is an all-sufficient reason for prohibiting it. And on the other hand, millions of persons who, in former days would have cried out against this way of improving the world—against the impairment of personal liberty and the sacrifice of social enjoyment and social variety—have no longer the courage of their convictions. The temper of the time is unfavorable to the assertion of the value of things so incapable of numerical measurement. Against the heavy battalions led by the statisticians, and the experimental psychologists, and the efficiency experts, what chance is there for successful resistance? On the opposing side can be rallied only such mere irregulars as are willing to fight for airy nothings—for the zest and colorfulness of life, for sociability and good fellowship, for preserving to each man access to those resources of relaxation and refreshment which, without injury to others, he finds conducive to his own happiness.
It is hardly necessary to say that, in taking up these various movements, no attempt has been made at anything like comprehensive discussion of their merits. Whatever may be the balance between good and ill in any of them, they all have in common one tendency that bodes danger to the highest and most permanent interests of mankind; and it is with this alone that I am concerned. What that tendency is has, I trust, been made sufficiently clear; but it will perhaps be brought out more distinctly by a consideration of the “Life Extension” [pg 70]propaganda more detailed and specific than that given to the other three.