The Fertility of the Unfit

by W. A. Chapple

These briefly are some of the remedies which have been advocated and in part applied for the protection of the race from degeneracy. I quote them, not with approval, but merely to show how grave and serious the social outlook is, in the minds of some of the best thinkers and truest philanthropists that have taught mankind. If the fertility of the fit could be kept uniformly at its normal rate in a state of nature, the race would have little to fear, for the tendency to further degeneration and consequent extinction amongst the defective would be sufficient to counteract their disposition to a high fertility. But in all civilized nations, the fertility of the fit is rapidly departing from that normal rate, and Mr. Herbert Spencer declares, with the gloomiest pessimism, that the infertility of the best citizens is the physiological result of their intellectual development. I have already expressed the opinion that prudence and social selfishness, operating through sexual self-restraint on the part of the best citizens of the State, are the cause of their infertility. It is impossible for the State to correct this evil, except by lessening the burden the fit man has to bear; and the elimination of the unfit, by artificial selection, is the surest and most effective way of bringing this about.

We have learned from the immortal Pasteur the true and scientific method of artificial selection of the fit, by the elimination of the unfit. We have already seen that he examined the moth, to find if it were healthy, and rejected its eggs if it were diseased. Medical knowledge of heredity and disease makes it possible to conduct analogous examinations of prospective mothers; and surgery secreted in the ample and luxurious folds of anæsthesia, and protected by its guardian angels antiseptics, makes it possible to prevent the fertilization of human ova with a vicious taint. It is possible to sterilize defective women, and the wives of defective men by an operation of simple ligature, which produces absolutely no change whatever in the subjects of it, beyond rendering this fertilization impossible, for the rest of life. This remedy for the great and growing evil which confronts us to-day is suggested, not to avenge but to protect society, and in profound pity for the classes who are a burden to themselves, as well as to those who have to tend and support them.

The problem of the unfit is not new. The burden of supporting those unable to support themselves has been keenly felt in all ages and among all peoples.

The ancients realized the danger and the burden, but found no difficulty when the stress became acute in enacting that all infants should be examined and the defective despatched.

To come nearer home, Boeltius tells us, that, "in old times when a Scot was affected with any hereditary disease their sons were emasculated, their daughters banished, and if any female affected with such disease were pregnant, she was to be burned alive."

Aristotle declared (Politics Book II, p. 40) that "neglect of this subject is a never failing cause of poverty, and poverty is the parent of revolution and crime," and he advocated habitual abortion as one remedy against over-population. The combined wisdom of the Greeks found no better method of keeping population well within the limits of the State's power to support its members than abortion, and the exposure of infants.

Since Aristotle's time abortion has been largely practised by civilized nations. Mutilation and infibulation of females have been practised by savages with the same end in view, while vasectomy, orchotomy, and ovariotomy, have had their avowed advocates in our own time.

The purpose of all these measures was to limit population with little or no distinction as to fitness to survive. The Spartans in ancient times, and many social reformers of to-day have discussed and advocated the artificial limitation of the unfit. The exposure of defective infants was the Spartan method of preserving the physical and mental stature of the race.

The surgical operations on both sexes advocated by some social writers of recent date, have not been received with much favour, and, as a social reform have not been practised. As operations they are grave and serious, profound in their effect upon the individual, and a violation of public sentiment. Anæsthetics and antiseptics have, however, made them possible, and if a surgical operation could be devised, simple and safe in performance, inert in every way but one, and against which there would be no individual or public sentiment, its application as a social reform, would go far to solve the grave and serious problem of the fertility of the unfit.

The unfit are subject to no moral law in the matter of procreation. They can be taught nothing, and they will practise nothing. Like the lower animals they obey their instincts and gratify their desires as they arise.