Let us for a moment suppose that the practice of eugenics should hereafter raise the average quality of our nation to that of its better moiety at the present day, and consider the gain. The general tone of domestic, social, and political life would be higher. The race as a whole would be less foolish, less frivolous, less excitable, and politically more provident than now. Its demagogues who "played to the gallery" would play to a more sensible gallery than at present. We should be better fitted to fulfil our vast imperial opportunities. Lastly, men of an order of ability which is now very rare would become more frequent, because the level out of which they rose would itself have risen. The aim of eugenics is to bring as many influences as can be reasonably employed, to cause the useful classes in the community to contribute more than their proportion to the next generation.

The course of procedure that lies within the functions of a learned and active society, such as the sociological may become, would be somewhat as follows:

1. Dissemination of a knowledge of the laws of heredity, so far as they are surely known, and promotion of their further study. Few seem to be aware how greatly the knowledge of what may be termed the actuarial side of heredity has advanced in recent years. The average closeness of kinship in each degree now admits of exact definition and of being treated mathematically, like birth- and death-rates, and the other topics with which actuaries are concerned.

2. Historical inquiry into the rates with which the various classes of society (classified according to civic usefulness) have contributed to the population at various times, in ancient and modern nations. There is strong reason for believing that national rise and decline is closely connected with this influence. It seems to be the tendency of high civilization to check fertility in the upper classes, through numerous causes, some of which are well known, others are inferred, and others again are wholly obscure. The latter class are apparently analogous to those which bar the fertility of most species of wild animals in zoölogical gardens. Out of the hundreds and thousands of species that

have been tamed, very few indeed are fertile when their liberty is restricted and their struggles for livelihood are abolished; those which are so, and are otherwise useful to man, becoming domesticated. There is perhaps some connection between this obscure action and the disappearance of most savage races when brought into contact with high civilization, though there are other and well-known concomitant causes. But while most barbarous races disappear, some, like the negro, do not. It may therefore be expected that types of our race will be found to exist which can be highly civilized without losing fertility; nay, they may become more fertile under artificial conditions, as is the case with many domestic animals.

3. Systematic collection of facts showing the circumstances under which large and thriving families have most frequently originated; in other words, the conditions of eugenics. The definition of a thriving family, that will pass muster for the moment at least, is one in which the children have gained distinctly superior positions to those who were their classmates in early life. Families may be considered "large" that contain not less than three adult male children. It would be no great burden to a society including many members who had eugenics at heart, to initiate and to preserve a large collection of such records for the use of statistical students. The committee charged with the task would have to consider very carefully the form of their circular and the persons intrusted to distribute it. They should ask only for as much useful information as could be easily, and would be readily, supplied by any member of the family appealed to. The point to be ascertained is the status of the two parents at the time of their marriage, whence its more or less eugenic character might have been predicted, if the larger knowledge that we now hope to obtain had then existed. Some account would be wanted of their race, profession, and residence; also of their own respective parentages, and of their brothers and sisters. Finally the reasons would be required why the children deserved to be entitled a "thriving" family. This manuscript collection might hereafter develop into a "golden book" of thriving families. The Chinese, whose customs have often much sound sense,

make their honors retrospective. We might learn from them to show that respect to the parents of noteworthy children which the contributors of such valuable assets to the national wealth richly deserve. The act of systematically collecting records of thriving families would have the further advantage of familiarizing the public with the fact that eugenics had at length become a subject of serious scientific study by an energetic society.

4. Influences affecting marriage. The remarks of Lord Bacon in his essay on Death may appropriately be quoted here. He says with the view of minimizing its terrors: "There is no passion in the mind of men so weak but it mates and masters the fear of death. . . . . Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honour aspireth to it; grief flyeth to it; fear preoccupateth it." Exactly the same kind of considerations apply to marriage. The passion of love seems so overpowering that it may be thought folly to try to direct its course. But plain facts do not confirm this view. Social influences of all kinds have immense power in the end, and they are very various. If unsuitable marriages from the eugenic point of view were banned socially, or even regarded with the unreasonable disfavor which some attach to cousin-marriages, very few would be made. The multitude of marriage restrictions that have proved prohibitive among uncivilized people would require a volume to describe.

5. Persistence in setting forth the national importance of eugenics. There are three stages to be passed through: (1) It must be made familiar as an academic question, until its exact importance has been understood and accepted as a fact. (2) It must be recognized as a subject whose practical development deserves serious consideration. (3) It must be introduced into the national conscience, like a new religion. It has, indeed, strong claims to become an orthodox religious tenet of the future, for eugenics co-operate with the workings of nature by securing that humanity shall be represented by the fittest races. What nature does blindly, slowly, and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly. As it lies within his power, so it becomes his duty to work in that direction. The improvement of our stock seems to me one of the highest objects that we can

reasonably attempt. We are ignorant of the ultimate destinies of humanity, but feel perfectly sure that it is as noble a work to raise its level, in the sense already explained, as it would be disgraceful to abase it. I see no impossibility in eugenics becoming a religious dogma among mankind, but its details must first be worked out sedulously in the study. Overzeal leading to hasty action would do harm, by holding out expectations of a near golden age, which will certainly be falsified and cause the science to be discredited. The first and main point is to secure the general intellectual acceptance of eugenics as a hopeful and most important study. Then let its principles work into the heart of the nation, which will gradually give practical effect to them in ways that we may not wholly foresee.

FRANCIS GALTON.

LONDON.

APPENDIX.

WORKS BY THE AUTHOR BEARING ON EUGENICS.

Hereditary Genius (Macmillan), 1869; 2d ed., 1892. See especially from p. 340 in the former edition to the end, and from p. 329 in the latter. Human Faculty (Macmillan), 1883 (out of print). See especially p. 305 to end. Natural Inheritance (Macmillan), 1889. This bears on inheritance generally, not particularly on eugenics.

Huxley Lecture of the Anthropological Institute on "The Possible Improvement of the Human Breed under the Existing Conditions of Law and Sentiment," Nature, 1901, p. 659; "Smithsonian Report," Washington, 1901, p. 523.

DISCUSSION.

BY PROFESSOR KARL PEARSON.

I am

My position here this afternoon requires possibly some explanation. not a member of the Sociological Society, and I must confess myself skeptical as to its power to do effective work. Frankly, I do not believe in groups of men and women who have each and all their allotted daily task creating a new branch of science. I believe it must be done by some one man who by force of knowledge, of method, and of enthusiasm hews out, in rough outline it may be, but decisively, a new block and creates a school to carve out its details. I think you will find on inquiry that this is the history of each great branch of science. The initiative has been given by some one great thinker -a Descartes, a Newton, a Virchow, a Darwin, or a Pasteur. A sociological society, until we have found a great sociologist, is a herd without a leader there is no authority to set bounds to your science or to prescribe its functions.1 This, you must realize, is the view of that poor creature, the doubting man, in media vitae; it is a view which cannot stand for a moment against the youthful energy of your secretary, or the

1

[The claims of Comte and Spencer to have jointly performed for sociology the preliminary service of architectonic initiation - for which Professor Karl Pearson looks to the future- were discussed in the paper laid before the society at the June meeting by Professor Durkheim and Mr. Branford (vide p. 134 of this number of the JOURNAL.-EDITORS.]

boyish hopefulness of Mr. Galton, who mentally is about half my age. Hence for a time I am carried away by their enthusiasm, and appear where I never anticipated being seen - - in the chair at a meeting of the Sociological Society. If this society thrives, and lives to do yeoman work in science—which, skeptic as I am, I sincerely hope it may do - then I believe its members in the distant future will look back on this occasion as perhaps the one of greatest historical interest in its babyhood. To those of us who have worked in fields adjacent to Mr. Galton's, he appears to us as something more than the discoverer of a new method of inquiry; we feel for him something more than we may do for the distinguished scientists in whose laboratories we have chanced to work. There is an indescribable atmosphere which spreads from him and which must influence all those who have come within reach of it. We realize it in his perpetual youth; in the instinct with which he reaches a great truth, where many of us plod on, groping through endless analysis; in his absolute unselfishness; and in his continual receptivity for new ideas. I have often wondered if Mr. Galton ever quarreled with anybody. And to the mind of one who is ever in controversy, it is one of the miracles associated with Mr. Galton that I know of no controversy, scientific or literary, in which he has been engaged. Those who look up to him, as we do, as to a master and scientific leader, feel for him as did the scholars for the grammarian:

"Our low life was the level's, and the night's ;
He's for the morning."

It seems to me that it is precisely in this spirit that he attacks the gravest problem which lies before the Caucasian races "in the morning." Are we to make the whole doctrine of descent, of inheritance, and of selection of the fitter, part of our everyday life, of our social customs, and of conduct? It is the question of the study now, but tomorrow it will be the question of the marketplace, of morality, and of politics. If I wanted to know how to put a saddle on a camel's back without chafing him, I should go to Francis Galton; if I wanted to know how to manage the women of a treacherous African tribe, I should go to Francis Galton; if I wanted an instrument for measuring a snail, or an arc of latitude, I should appeal to Francis Galton; if I wanted advice on any mechanical, of any geographical, or any sociological problem, I should consult Francis Galton. In all these matters, and many others, I feel confident he would throw light on my difficulties, and I am firmly convinced that, with his eternal youth, his elasticity of mind, and his keen insight, he can aid us in seeking an answer to one of the most vital of our national problems: How is the next generation of Englishmen to be mentally and physically equal to the past generation which has provided us with the great Victorian statesmen, writers, and men of science- most of whom are now no more but which has not entirely ceased to be as long as we can see Francis Galton in the flesh?

BY DR. MAUDSLEY.

The subject is difficult, not only from the complexity of the matter, but also from the subtleties of the forces that we have to deal with. In considering the question of hereditary influences, as I have done for some long period of my life, one met with the difficulty, which must have occurred to everyone here, that in any family of which you take cognizance you may find one member, a son, like his mother or father, or like a mixture of the two. or more like his mother, or that he harks back to some distant ancestor; and then again you will find one not in the least like father or mother or any relatives, so far as you know. There is a variation, or whatever you may call it, of which in our present knowledge you cannot give the least explanation. Take, as a supreme instance, Shakespeare. He was born of parents not distinguished from their neighbors. He had five brothers living, one of whom came to London and acted with him at Blackfriars' Theater, and afterward died. Yet, while Shakespeare rose to the extraordinary eminence that he did, none of his brothers distinguished themselves in any way. And so it is in other families. From my long experience as a physician I could give instances in every department — in science, in literature, in art - in which one member of the family has risen to extraordinary prominence, almost genius perhaps, and another has suffered from mental disorder.