Nowhere do we find any reference to the quality of the blood-stream of the people. Nor does it seem to have been discovered by those who wield authority, that the glory of a nation depends upon its brains, not its bulk; nor do they apprehend that the greatness of a people is not in its past history, but in its ever-existing motherhood; and that its battles, in the future, must be fought, not on battlefields, but in its nurseries. When we judge our national worth and wealth by the quality of our maternal material, and estimate our greatness and our glory by the record of our infant mortality, we will have carved an enduring niche in the celestial scheme that will be unchangeable and for all time.
There are in Britain to-day over a million and a quarter females of marriageable age in excess of the number of marriageable males. A war between Britain and Germany would unquestionably be the bloodiest war in all history, and it probably would be the last one, because it would only end in the dominance of one power over all the others. If we concern ourselves only with Britain—from the eugenic standpoint—who would dare compute the ratio of marriageable females over the males after the war was over? The consequence of such a war on posterity would be tragic. It would mean the annihilation of the fittest for fatherhood for generations. Only the unfit would be left from which to begin a new breed.
The multitude of females who would necessarily be left unable to participate in the highest function of womanhood would have to be self-supporting. The economic problem would, therefore, have a far-reaching influence and even if solved adequately as an economic problem, it could never be solved satisfactorily as a sociological, or as a problem in eugenics.
Infant mortality is too high. Apart from the
statistical proof which shows it, we may rightly construe as further proof of it, the widespread effort being made in every civilized country in the world to ameliorate the condition.
The laws and ethics of marriage are inadequate. Its true purpose is frustrated and racial and individual injustice and imperfection are the products of existing conditions.
Motherhood, in its every aspect is not, and has not in the past, been elevated to the plane which a true estimate of its supreme importance to the race justifies.
Heredity as a scientific principle is undeveloped, and because of maladministration in past generations, the present generation is endeavoring to do the work, the fruits of which it should be enjoying.
Environment in its highest sense is impossible because of inadequate laws, imperfect hygienic and sanitary knowledge, incomplete education, vice and disease.
If there was not some supremely important, cardinal error somewhere, it is reasonable to suppose that in one or other of the departments of human effort we would have reached the summit of idealism. The State, as an institution, would have evolved a perfection which would enable it to exist as an independent mechanism, complete and ideal in all its ramifications. We have had no such state, however. The highest type of empire has been ludicrously dependent upon the minor exigencies of individual human existence.