"Greater tasks than those contemplated in the broadest scheme of the Eugenics committee have been carried out in this country. If only one half of one per cent of the 30 million dollars annually spent on hospitals, 20 millions on insane asylums, 20 millions for almshouses, 13 millions on prisons, and 5 millions on the feeble-minded, deaf and blind were spent on the study of the bad germ plasm that makes necessary the annual expenditure of nearly 100 millions in the care of its produce we might hope to learn just how it is being reproduced and the best way to diminish its further spread. A _new_ plague that rendered four per cent of our population, chiefly at the most productive age, not only incompetent, but a burden costing 100 million dollars yearly to support, would instantly attract universal attention, and millions would be forthcoming for its study as they have been for the study of cancer. But we have become so used to crime, disease and degeneracy that we take them as necessary evils.
That they were, in the world"s ignorance, is granted. That they must remain so, is denied."
Of course one should not jump from this to the conclusion that the fact of heredity is responsible for all of this defect. Disease is so often the result of infections to which none is immune, and defect is frequently the result of such disease. Warba.s.se has recently stated that "At least one fourth of our public inst.i.tutions for caring for defectives is made necessary by venereal disease." Doubtless an appreciable share of this fourth is the result of hereditary tendencies, the expression of which gives the opportunity for such infection. Here as elsewhere no single factor accounts for all of the facts, although when, as the result of the increase of knowledge, we shall become able to make more definite statements, we no doubt shall find that heredity is the most important single factor in the disgraceful prevalence of crime, disease, and defect in our communities: indeed this is practically demonstrated to-day. These are questions of the most fundamental importance in our national life-history: our only "hope of perpetuity" lies in the right solution of such problems. And the crying need is for facts, always more facts.
The Galton Laboratory for Eugenics is already doing much in this direction and is publishing in the "Treasury of Human Inheritance"
scores of human pedigrees. An agency is already in operation in this country. The American Breeders a.s.sociation has appointed a Committee and Sub-Committees under highly competent leaders for the collection of exact data of human heredity upon a large scale. There is opportunity for everyone to help in this work in connection with the Eugenics Record Office already referred to.
The second great element in the eugenic program is Research. It is not enough to collect the known facts; new facts must be forthcoming. We cannot, perhaps, undertake definite experiments upon human evolution, but we can and must take advantage of the wealth of experiment which Nature is carrying out around us and before our eyes could we but learn to read her results. We need to know more about the process of differential fertility, of human variability, of the effects of Nurture as well as of the conditions of Nature.
We do know pretty well the effects, upon the individual, of training, education, good and ill housing conditions and conditions of labor, of disease, alcoholism, underfeeding. We need now to know, not to guess at, the effects of these things upon the race, upon human stock. A mere beginning has been made here in the way of a scientific treatment of this question, although many persons have their minds already made up, firmly and fully, as to the "effects of the environment." But all that we have guessed here may be wrong.
The discussion of this subject is filled with pitfalls. The common form of the query as to which is of the greater importance, "heredity or environment," in determining individual characteristics betrays a completely erroneous view of what heredity is, and of the organism"s relation to its environment. The living organism reacts to its environment at every stage of its existence, whether as an egg, an embryo, or an adult. In this reaction both factors are essential, the environment as essential as the organism. The result of this continued reaction is the development on the part of the organism of certain physiological processes and structural conditions or characteristics.
The nature of these resulting states, depending upon the two factors--organism and environment--can be changed by altering either factor. In general, organisms develop under pretty much the same conditions as their parents and general ancestry did, and their germinal substances are directly continuous, and therefore very similar. Consequently, primary organic structure and environing conditions of development being alike through successive generations, the results of their interaction are alike. This alikeness is heredity--the fact of similarity between parent and offspring. The usually indefinite question as to the effect of the environment ordinarily has a real meaning however, and this is, or should be, whether the alteration of particular elements of the environment, the presence of special, unusual factors which cannot be said to be "normally" present--whether these produce any effect upon the organism which is truly heritable.
This is in reality the old question of the "inheritance of acquired characteristics," or, in a word, of modifications--a question which has been debated heatedly and at length. And as in many similar instances the number of essays and the length and heat of the debate have been inversely as the number and clearness of the pertinent facts. The large majority of biologists have long felt that the great bulk of the evidence was on one side, namely, that acquired traits were not heritable. At the same time they have recognized the difficulty of explaining certain apparently demonstrated contradictory facts. Some recent experimental work has largely cleared away the theoretical difficulties in this field, and the present status of the old and really fundamental question may be stated as follows: External conditions--climate, temperature, moisture, nutritional conditions, results of unusual activity, and the like--incidences of the environment, undoubtedly produce effects upon the structure and behavior of the organism, but these effects must be clearly grouped into two distinct cla.s.ses.
In the first place the effect of "external" conditions may be to bring about a reaction between the _bodily_ parts affected and the environing conditions. Here the body alone is modified and not the germinal substance for the next generation within this body. Such responses to environing conditions do not affect nor involve the structure of the germ, and are therefore unrepresented in that series of reactions that result in the production of an individual of the next generation. In this cla.s.s are found most of the instances of "functional modification" or acquired characteristics. In this category belong most of the stock ill.u.s.trations--from the blacksmith"s arm and the pianist"s fingers, to the giraffe"s neck and the fox"s cunning. Here also belong the results of training and education; we can train and educate brain cells but not germ cells.
It is characteristic of most of these bodily reactions to external conditions that they are adaptive; that is, when a body reacts to such a condition it does so by undergoing a change which makes the organism better fitted to the new condition--better able to exist. The increased keenness of vision, the strengthened muscle, the thickened fur--all such changes meet new or unusual demands in such a way that the organism has better chances of survival than it would have had unmodified.
But in the second place there are certain environmental circ.u.mstances which do affect the structure of the germinal substance within the body of an organism. An unusually high temperature acting at a certain period in the life-history may bring about a change in the color of insects which is heritable--i. e., racial; but such a change results from the action of temperature upon the germ directly and not alone upon the body, which then itself affects the germ. It is essential to recognize that in all such cases it is not the structural change in the body that affects the germ, but it is the external condition itself that affects the germ directly. This is not the half of a hair; it is an extremely important and significant difference. The effects of this kind of action are not visible until the generation following that acted upon. They become expressed in the bodies of the organisms developed from the affected germs.
It is characteristic of such changes as these that they may not, usually do not, have an adaptive relation to the condition bringing about the change. There is no correspondence between the bodily and the germinal modifications resulting from the action of the same condition. Furthermore, there seems to be no adaptive relation between the general character of the germinal disturbance and the environmental disturbance. Rarely some of the organismal characters resulting from such germinal modification may be in the direction of greater adaptedness; usually they are neutral or in the direction of utter unfitness.
But such effects are heritable, whatever their nature with respect to adaptedness, and it becomes therefore very important to find out what are the conditions that may thus disturb the normal structure of the germ. Little more than a beginning has been made here and practically nothing can be said definitely with reference to the human organism in this respect. Enough is known, however, to make it clear that it is only rarely indeed that external conditions can thus affect the germinal structure. In most cases the effects of the incidence of environment are purely bodily. A most fruitful field for eugenic investigation is open here.
One of the first problems to be attacked from this point of view is that of the racial (i. e., heritable) effects of such poisons as alcohol. It is frequently said, for instance, that some of the effects of alcoholism are the weakened, epileptic, or feeble-minded conditions of the offspring, who are also particularly liable to disease and infection. It can hardly be said that this is as yet thoroughly demonstrated. On account of the importance of this question we might call specific attention to some recent investigations of the problem of the racial influence of alcohol. The effects of alcohol upon the individual are fairly well known, although still a matter for debate in some quarters. But this is not as important eugenically as the possible effect upon the offspring of the use and abuse of alcohol by the parents. An investigation has been carried on recently through the Galton Laboratory for National Eugenics directed toward ascertaining the precise relation between alcoholism in parents and the height, weight, general health, and intelligence of their children. It was found to be perfectly true that alcoholism and tuberculosis show a high degree of a.s.sociation; but considering the nondrinking members of the same community just the same high frequency of tuberculosis was found. And the presence of alcoholism among parents was found to be practically without effect upon the height and weight of their offspring. "These results are certainly startling and rather upset one"s preconceived ideas, but it is perhaps a consolation that to the obvious and visible miseries of the children arising from drink, lowered intelligence and physique are not added."
The difficulties surrounding investigation and the interpretation of the results of investigation in this particular field are evidenced by the fact that these results have been adversely criticised, on the one hand, because "alcoholism" was taken to mean the continued moderate use of alcohol, and on the other because "alcoholism" was taken to mean only the occasional excessive abuse of alcohol. Much of the confusion surrounding the discussion of the racial effects of alcohol grows out of the underlying confusion of statistical and individual statements. It may be left open, then, whether this result from the Galton Laboratory is clearly demonstrated and whether the basis of investigation was sufficiently broad to make the facts of general applicability.
The frequent a.s.sociation between alcoholism and certain forms of insanity is sometimes taken as evidence of a racial effect. Here again we find the question really left open when we appeal to facts taken in large numbers. In a few cases it seems to have been demonstrated that saturation of the bodily tissues with alcohol affects directly the structure of the germ cells formed at that time, and that this effect is seen in physical and mental disturbances of the offspring derived from such germ cells, and thus becomes hereditary or racial. But these results, like those mentioned above, need confirmation. The impairment of the child _in utero_ through maternal overindulgence in alcohol would not necessarily denote any corresponding germinal (i. e., racial) effect.
It is often the case that alcoholic excess, like other forms of excess, may be an indication of a lack of complete mental balance or sanity, sure to have become expressed in some form. The lack of balance in the offspring of such persons is a simple case of heredity and not the result of the parental use of alcohol. The alcoholism of the parent was a result, an indication, and not a cause. There may be instances of the direct action of external conditions upon the germ, and in a very true sense the body is a part of the external environment of the germ, but to say that such an action has been demonstrated for alcohol is premature. It should be easily possible to get real evidence upon this and similar questions. But at present it is safest to leave the whole question of the racial effects of alcohol entirely open pending more and better evidence.
To summarize, then, we may say that the evidence for an inherited effect of the misuse of alcohol is not as clear as one might wish; it may be true. There is the greatest need for the careful scientific investigation of this and allied problems. Much of the evidence here is not of the kind that can be used to prove things--it consists largely of the demonstration of the fact of a.s.sociation rather than of causation. In order to show that a changed environment has produced a change in the innate characters of the organisms affected it must be demonstrated that the organismal change continues to be inherited after the environment has again become what it was originally, and as yet this has not been done. Indeed when tested in this way it is found that a permanently heritable alteration can thus be produced only rarely and by environmental changes of the most profound character.
Research in another direction is greatly needed. We should examine and reexamine current as well as proposed social practices and reforms from the racial point of view. We should know before going much farther whether the extensive social improvements that are annually effected are to any considerable degree racially permanent. We should investigate not only the racial effects of the unfavorable social conditions themselves, but also the racial effects of the measures directed toward the relief of such conditions. It is conceivable that measures of relief may be practically without permanent effect or even racially detrimental. It would seem that the social worker and philanthropist should welcome any biologically fundamental truths touching these questions, and yet it is curiously true that there are some such persons who seem to prefer not to know the whole truth here, perhaps because they fear it may disclose the unwelcome fact that much of their effort has resulted in amelioration rather than in correction. It should be remembered that simple relief is well worth while, even though often without resulting racial benefit. When it is not actually detrimental racially, relief is an economic, social, and moral duty. The Eugenist, by disclosing the fact that racial effects can actually be accomplished, enlarges rather than diminishes the opportunities for relief and his knowledge should be welcomed and use made of it.
Heretofore the social point of view has been practically the only point of view in much of this work, and the result is that usually following when action is based upon half-truth. David Starr Jordan says: "Charity creates the misery she tries to relieve; she never relieves half the misery she creates," and he goes on to say that _unwise_ charity is responsible for half the pauperism of the world; that it is the duty of charity to remove the _causes_ of weakness and suffering and equally to see that weakness and suffering are not needlessly perpetuated. In this connection the following quotation from Elderton is apt: "... the influence of the parental environmental factor on the welfare of children is ... at present and has been in the past the chief direction of legislative and philanthropic attack on social evils. Degeneracy of every form has been attributed to poverty, bad housing, unhealthy trades, drinking, industrial occupation of women, and other direct or indirect environmental influences on offspring. If we could by education, by legislation, or by social effort change the environmental conditions, would the race at once rise to a markedly higher standard of physique and mentality?
Much, if not the whole battle for social reform, has been based on the a.s.sumption that this question was obviously to be answered in the affirmative. No direct investigation has really ever been made of the intensity of the influence of environment on man. To modify the obviously repellent was the immediate instinct of the more gently nurtured and controlling social cla.s.s. Was this direction of social reform really capable of effecting any substantial change? Nay, by lessening the selective death rate, may it not have contributed to emphasizing the very evils it was intended to lessen? These are the problems which occur to the eugenist and call for investigation and, if possible, settlement.... It is conceivable that the relation between children"s physique, for example, and parental occupation is an indirect result of the inheritance of physique and a correlation between parents" physique and their occupation. In other words, what we are attributing to environment may be a secondary influence of heredity itself. A weakling may have no option but to follow an unhealthy trade, a man is a tailor or shoemaker, because he has not the physique for smith or navvy. His offspring may be physically inferior because he is a weakling and not because he follows an unhealthy trade. Clearly, to solve our problem, we must know if there be any correlation between the same character in the parent as we are observing in the child and the environment we are correlating with the child"s character. Unfortunately data enabling us to determine the relationship of any mental or physical character of the parent with the environment which is supposed to influence the child is rarely forthcoming."
Just to suggest one further train of thought, we might point out that several movements apparently of high social value have been attended by a curious and largely unforeseen back action. Thus the enforcement of certain forms of Employer"s Liability laws has led to discrimination against married persons by large employers of labor and a premium thus put upon nonmarriage. The result of Child Labor legislation has been in some cases an enormous rise in the death rate of young children among the cla.s.ses concerned, indicating that the children receive less care, now that they have ceased to be a prospective family a.s.set and have become chiefly a burden for many years. In other cases the result has been so serious a limitation in the birth rate that communities are dying out and factories are closing for want of sufficient help. Such problems are not only social but economic and eugenic, and they cannot be seen squarely from any single point of view. It is doubtless shocking to the cultured mind that the chief reason for bringing children into the world should be their economic value as contributors to the family income. But in reality does this point of view differ fundamentally from that very commonly taken of the value of a large family except in the nature of the standard by which their value is measured? May there not be a difference of opinion as to whether children are better or worse off when brought up with some degree of care to be employed under humane conditions of labor, than when left uncared for to die in large proportions of disease and neglect?
Finally, studies in heredity, whether on man or on other animals or on plants, are sure to be of value here because we know that the fundamental processes of heredity are the same in all organisms. Above all, the Eugenist needs to know more of Mendelian heredity in man.
The facts of heredity stated in the statistical form of averages and coefficients do not affect the man in the street materially--he rather enjoys taking chances. An extensive eugenic practice can be established only when we can say definitely what the individual or family inheritance will be in a given instance--not what it will be with such and such a degree of probability, although that probability be high. We may not be such a long way off from this ideal, which is an essential for the inauguration of eugenic practice upon a large scale. For the Eugenist this is the richest field for investigation and one which is certain to yield large results.
The Eugenist"s demand for more facts will doubtless become an important factor in the progress of biological science. The practical application of the knowledge of heredity in the production of domesticated or cultivated varieties of animals and plants is becoming annually more extensive; and with the recognition of the possibility of the application of this knowledge to the control of the evolution of man himself, will come a rapid increase in biological knowledge and in the earnestness of the student of heredity. And at the same time another result may be that the science of biology shall come to be appraised publicly more nearly at its real value. The biological worker knows that his science comes into contact with human life at every point, that a knowledge of the fundamental principles of the science of life cannot fail to enrich, enlighten, and enn.o.ble the life of every human being. But the community does not yet realize this, to its own great loss. Is it not possible that the Eugenist, finding his fundamentals in biology, by emphasizing the facts of the possibility and the necessity of controlling human evolution, may be able to bring to society a vital sense of the importance of this science with a directness and a vividness which the bacteriologist and hygienist have not been able thus far to realize? Is it even too much to hope that the idea that the "humanities" include only the study of man"s comparatively recent past, may now more rapidly give place to a broader conception which shall include not only the whole of man"s past, but the study of his future as well? Could any ideal be more vitally, more profoundly human or more worthy of study and devotion, than this of the production of a race of men, clean and sound in mind and body? Be that as it may, the development of this bio-social field can scarcely fail to stimulate strongly the treatment of all social problems with a strictly scientific method. Nothing less than exact methods, and results exactly stated, will satisfy the genuine and really valuable social student of the near future. As one recent writer has feelingly put it: "We have had essays enough."
Eugenic practice for the immediate future is the third part of our program. Must we wait until more data are collected, more facts uncovered, before we undertake any definite proposals for eugenic procedure? Although this is the most difficult aspect of the subject, largely through lack of a sufficiently broad fact-basis, yet we are certainly in possession of enough information to make plain a few necessary steps. Most of the concrete proposals directed toward the reduction of the undesirables and the increase of the desirables have been visionary, impractical, or too limited in their view-point.
Above all, they have been open to the objection that they have gone too far in the direction of that zone which separates the two cla.s.ses.
It should be said again that most of these proposals have been those of the amateur enthusiast, not of the seriously scientific Eugenist; they have grown out of that common habit of "getting far from the facts and philosophizing about them."
As Pearson points out, we must start from three fundamental biological ideas. First, "That the relative weight of nature and nurture must not _a priori_ be a.s.sumed but must be scientifically measured; and thus far our experience is that nature dominates nurture, and that inheritance is more vital than environment." Second, "That there exists no demonstrable inheritance of acquired characters. Environment modifies the bodily characters of the existing generation, but does not [often] modify the germ plasms from which the next generation springs. At most, environment can provide a selection of which germ plasms among the many provided shall be potential and which shall remain latent." Third, "That all human qualities are inherited in a marked and probably equal degree." "If these ideas represent the substantial truth, you will see how the whole function of the eugenist is theoretically simplified. He cannot hope by nurture and by education to create new germinal types. He can only hope by selective environment to obtain the types most conducive to racial welfare and to national progress. If we see this point clearly and grasp it to the full, what a flood of light it sheds on half the schemes for the amelioration of the people.... The widely prevalent notion that bettered environment and improved education mean a _progressive_ evolution of humanity is found to be without any satisfactory scientific basis. Improved conditions of life mean better health for the existing population; greater educational facilities mean greater capacity for finding and using existing ability; they do not connote that the next generation will be either physically or mentally better than its parents. Selection of parentage is the sole effective process known to science by which a race can continuously progress. The rise and fall of nations are in truth summed up in the maintenance or cessation of that process of selection. Where the battle is to the capable and thrifty, where the dull and idle have no chance to propagate their kind, there the nation will progress, even if the land be sterile, the environment unfriendly and educational facilities small."
As a concrete example of a most commendable eugenic practice we should mention the sterilization of certain cla.s.ses of criminal and insane as it is now practiced in the States of Indiana and Connecticut. For the last four years (since March, 1907) the laws of Indiana have permitted the performance of the operation of vasectomy upon "confirmed criminals, idiots, rapists, and imbeciles" after rigid scrutiny of all the mental and physical conditions of the individual case and upon the concurrent judgment of three competent and impartial persons. The t.i.tle and significant parts of the text of this law are as follows:
_An Act_, ent.i.tled, An Act to prevent procreation of confirmed criminals, idiots, imbeciles, and rapists--providing that superintendents, or boards of managers, of inst.i.tutions where such persons are confined shall have the authority, and are empowered to appoint a committee of experts, consisting of two physicians, to examine into the mental condition of such inmates.
_Whereas_, Heredity plays a most important part in the transmission of crime, idiocy, and imbecility;
_Therefore_, Be it enacted by the General a.s.sembly of the State of Indiana, That on and after the pa.s.sage of this act it shall be compulsory for each and every inst.i.tution in the State, entrusted with the care of confirmed criminals, idiots, rapists, and imbeciles, to appoint upon its staff, in addition to the regular inst.i.tutional physician, two (2) skilled surgeons of recognized ability, whose duty it shall be, in conjunction with the chief physician of the inst.i.tution, to examine the mental and physical condition of such inmates as are recommended by the inst.i.tutional physician and board of managers. If, in the judgment of this committee of experts and the board of managers, procreation is inadvisable, and there is no probability of improvement of the mental and physical condition of the inmate, it shall be lawful for the surgeons to perform such operation for the prevention of procreation as shall be decided safest and most effective. But this operation shall not be performed except in cases that have been p.r.o.nounced unimprovable: Provided, That in no case shall the consultation fee be more than three (3) dollars to each expert, to be paid out of the funds appropriated for the maintenance of such inst.i.tution.
This operation of vasectomy, sometimes known as "Rentoul"s operation,"
consists, in the male, in the removal of a small portion of each sperm duct; the individual is thus rendered sterile in a completely effective and permanent way. At the same time there are none of the harmful effects, either physical or mental, such as usually follow the better known forms of sterilization which are in reality as.e.xualization rather than sterilization. Vasectomy is a simple "office" operation occupying only a few minutes and requiring at the most the application of only a local anaesthetic, such as cocaine; and there are no disturbing nor even inconvenient after effects. In the female the corresponding operation of oophorotomy consists in removing a small portion of each Fallopian tube. In Indiana nearly a thousand persons have already been successfully treated, many upon their own request--a circ.u.mstance entirely unforeseen. Similar laws have been pa.s.sed in Oregon and Connecticut, and are being carefully considered in several other States.
In order that the exact nature of such proposals may be better known generally we may give here also the text of the Connecticut law which is somewhat more inclusive and more flexible than that of Indiana. The Connecticut Statute, enacted in August, 1909, is as follows:
_An Act_, concerning operations for the Prevention of Procreation.--Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General a.s.sembly convened:
_Section 1._ The directors of the State prison and the superintendents of State hospitals for the insane at Middletown and Norwich are hereby authorized and directed to appoint for each of said inst.i.tutions, respectively, two skilled surgeons, who, in conjunction with the physician or surgeon in charge at each of said inst.i.tutions, shall examine such persons as are reported to them by the warden, superintendent, or the physician or surgeon in charge, to be persons by whom procreation would be inadvisable.
Such board shall examine the physical and mental condition of such persons, and their record and family history so far as the same can be ascertained, and if in the judgment of the majority of said board, procreation by any such person would produce children with an inherited tendency to crime, insanity, feeble-mindedness, idiocy, or imbecility, and there is no probability that the condition of any such person so examined will improve to such an extent as to render procreation by such person advisable, or, if the physical and mental condition of any such person will be substantially improved thereby, then the said board shall appoint one of its members to perform the operation of vasectomy or ooph.o.r.ectomy, as the case may be, upon such person. Such operation shall be performed in a safe and humane manner, and the board making such examination, and the surgeon performing such operation, shall receive from the State such compensation, for services rendered, as the warden of the State prison or the superintendent of either of such hospitals shall deem reasonable.
_Section 2._ Except as authorized by this Act, every person who shall perform, encourage, a.s.sist in, or otherwise promote the performance of either of the operations described in Section 1 of this Act, for the purpose of destroying the power to procreate the human species; or any person who shall knowingly permit either of such operations to be performed upon such person--unless the same be a medical necessity--shall be fined not more than one thousand dollars, or imprisoned in the State prison not more than five years, or both.
These States are to be commended in the highest possible terms for their enlightened action in this direction. Who can say how many families of Jukes and Zeros have already been inhibited by this simple and humane means? "Could such a law be enforced in the whole United States, less than four generations would eliminate nine tenths of the crime, insanity and sickness of the present generation in our land.
Asylums, prisons and hospitals would decrease, and the problems of the unemployed, the indigent old, and the hopelessly degenerate would cease to trouble civilization."
And yet probably for years to come those mental states and conditions of servitude graciously termed "conservatism" will continue to insure an undiminished horde of these unfortunates. The situation here is interestingly a.n.a.logous to that in connection with certain of the infectious diseases. Concerning the eradication of typhoid fever, to mention a single concrete example, competent authorities declare that we now possess all of the information necessary to make typhoid fever as obsolete in civilized communities as is cholera or smallpox. "The average third-year medical student knows enough about typhoid fever to be able to stamp it out if he were endowed with absolute power."
"Typhoid fever has pa.s.sed beyond the catalogue of diseases; it is a crime." Our knowledge of the causes of many of the conditions leading to gross physical and mental defect and criminality has progressed already to such a point that we could if we would eradicate them in large proportion from our civilization. The great horde of defectives, once in the world, have the right to live and to enjoy as best they may whatever freedom is compatible with the lives and freedom of the other members of society. They have not the right to produce and reproduce more of their kind for a too generous and too blindly "charitable" society to contend against. The greater crime consists in allowing the hereditary criminal to be born.
A well-known British alienist, Tredgold, after pointing out that the duty of medical science is to fight and relieve disease in every shape and form, adds: "That if social science does not keep pace with medical science in this matter the end will be national disaster. In other words, I would lay it down as a general principle that as soon as a nation reaches that stage of civilization in which medical knowledge and humanitarian sentiment operate to prolong the existence of the unfit, then it becomes imperative upon that nation to devise such social laws as will insure that these unfit do not propagate their kind.
"For, mark you, it is not as if these degenerates mated solely amongst themselves. Were that so, it is possible that, even in spite of the physician, the acc.u.mulated morbidity would become so powerful as to work out its own salvation by bringing about the sterility and extinction of its victims. The danger lies in the fact that these degenerates mate with the _healthy_ members of the community and thereby constantly drag fresh blood into the vortex of disease and lower the general vigour of the nation."
Such a practice as vasectomy then represents nicely the eugenic aim of allowing the individual, who is himself never to be blamed for his hereditary const.i.tution, the greatest possible personal freedom and liberty, of allowing full play of sympathy for the individual, and at the same time of exercising the greatest sympathy to society in prohibiting the hereditary criminal from procreating a long line of descendants endowed as badly as he himself was through no fault of his own, but through the gross neglect of society.
Another quotation from Pearson: "To-day we feed our criminals up, and we feed up our insane, we let both out of the prison or asylum "reformed" or "cured," as the case may be, only after a few months to return to State supervision, leaving behind them the germs of a new generation of deteriorants. The average number of crimes due to the convicts in his Majesty"s prisons to-day is ten apiece. We cannot reform the criminal, nor cure the insane from the standpoint of heredity; the taint varies not with their mental or moral conduct.
These are the products of the somatic cells; the disease lies deeper in their germinal const.i.tution. Education for the criminal, fresh air for the tuberculous, rest and food for the neurotic--these are excellent, they may bring control, sound lungs, and sanity to the individual; but they will not save the offspring from the need of like treatment, nor from the danger of collapse when the time of strain comes. They cannot make a nation sound in mind and body, they merely screen degeneracy behind a throng of arrested degenerates. Our highly developed human sympathy will no longer allow us to watch the State purify itself by the aid of crude natural selection. We see pain and suffering only to relieve it, without inquiry as to the moral character of the sufferer or as to his national or racial value. And this is right--no man is responsible for his own being; and nature and nurture, over which he had no control, have made him the being he is, good or evil. But here science steps in, crying: Let the reprieve be accepted, but next remind the social conscience of its duty to the race ... let there be no heritage if you would build up and preserve a virile and efficient people. Here, I hold, we reach the kernel of the truth which the science of eugenics has at present revealed."
It is also a part of eugenic practice to oppose vigorously and unmistakably any social practice leading to the reduction in the reproductivity of the desirable and valuable elements of society.
There is to be included here for censure a long list of customs and practices, from the enforced celibacy of the Church to the horror of horrors--warfare. A moment"s reflection will suggest many reprehensible practices of this kind more or less current in certain cla.s.ses or communities. The requirement of nonmarriage on the part of women teachers--persons of tested and demonstrated ability, is a very general practice of decidedly noneugenic character. In Great Britain more than 75,000 nurses, all of whom must have pa.s.sed physical examination, are cut off from reproduction by the same requirement of nonmarriage. Many less striking but all too common practices have the final effect of forbidding marriage to the healthy, physically or mentally capable, helpful, cla.s.ses. "Help wanted. Must be unenc.u.mbered."
More vigorously and more unmistakably does the Eugenist discourage anything that leads to matings of the unfit and, above all, to their reproduction. Many countries, from Servia to the Argentine Republic, have statutes forbidding the marriage of the insane, idiots, deaf and dumb, certain cla.s.ses of criminals, and persons afflicted with certain contagious diseases. It is to be hoped that these laws are enforced with greater effectiveness than that with which our own less stringent laws of similar character are administered. After all, it is the reproduction of these persons that should be limited, and among many of these cla.s.ses the fact of nonmarriage would provide not the slightest barrier to reproduction.
It is unfortunately true, but true none the less, that there are current forms of so-called philanthropy which, by relieving defective parents of the care of their defective offspring, thus encourage them in the production of more defective offspring; and so the flames are fed. Relief is the smallest part of the problem. Any condition which leads to the multiplication of the innately defective and dependent cla.s.ses must be sternly opposed. No matter how benign the guise of any form of relief or charity, if it encourages or permits even indirectly the free reproduction of these cla.s.ses, it must be resolutely opposed and soon abandoned. "It is not enough to preach with horror and indignation against normal parents who restrict their families. Equal reprobation should be the lot of those who, with inherited insanity, feeble-mindedness, or disease, bring children into the world to perpetuate their infirmities. It should not be overlooked that the realization of the power of limiting the birth rate, while it has produced untold harm, when applied blindly and in accordance with individual caprice, may become an instrument for good if it extends to the worst stocks, while the better stocks once more undertake their natural duties."
Practical Eugenics need not be limited to its philanthropic and legislative aspects. There are other social mechanisms which could be used to encourage the multiplication of the fitter, abler families.