Marriage and Morals/Chapter XVIII

Eugenics is the attempt to improve the biological character of a breed by deliberate methods adopted to that end. The ideas upon which it is based are Darwinian, and appropriately enough, the President of the Eugenics Society is a son of Charles Darwin; but the more immediate progenitor of eugenic ideas was Francis Galton, who strongly emphasized the hereditary factor in human achievement. In our day, especially in America, heredity has become a party question. American conservatives maintain that the finished character of a grown man is mainly due to congenital characteristics, while American radicals maintain, on the contrary, that education is everything and heredity nothing, I cannot agree with either of these two extreme positions, nor with the premise which they share and which gives rise to their opposite prejudices, namely that Italians, South Slavs and such are inferior, as finished ​products, to the native-born Americans of the Ku Klux Klan. No data exist as yet for determining, in regard to human mental capacity, what part is due to heredity and what to education. If the matter were to be scientifically determined, it would be necessary to take thousands of pairs of identical twins, separate them at birth, and educate them in ways as widely divergent as possible. At present, however, this experiment is not practicable. My own belief, which I confess to be unscientific and based merely upon impressions, is that, while anybody can be ruined by a bad education, and in fact almost everybody is, only people with certain native aptitudes can achieve great excellence in various directions. I do not believe that any degree of education would turn the average boy into a first-rate pianist; I do not believe that the best school in the world could turn us all into Einsteins; I do not believe that Napoleon was not superior in native endowment to his school-fellows at Brienne, and had merely learned strategy through watching his mother manage her brood of unruly sons. I am convinced that in such cases, and to a lesser degree in all cases, there is a native aptitude which causes ​education to produce better results than it does with average material. There are, indeed, obvious facts which point to this conclusion, such as that one can generally tell whether a man is a clever man or a fool by the shape of his head, which can hardly be regarded as a characteristic conferred by education. Then, again, consider the opposite extreme, that of idiocy, imbecility and feeble-mindedness. Not even the most fanatical opponent of eugenics denies that idiocy is, at any rate in most cases, congenital, and to any person with a feeling for statistical symmetry, this implies that at the opposite end also there will be a corresponding percentage of persons with abnormally great capacity. I shall therefore assume without more ado that human beings differ in regard to congenital mental capacity. I shall assume also, what is perhaps more dubious, that clever people are preferable to their opposite. These two points being conceded, the foundations are laid for the eugenists’ case. We must not, therefore, pooh-pooh the whole position, whatever we may think of some of the details in certain of its advocates.

There has been a quite exceptional lot of nonsense written on the subject of eugenics. ​Most of its advocates add to their sound biological foundation certain sociological propositions of a less indubitable nature. Such are: that virtue is proportional to income; that the inheritance of poverty (alas, too common!) is a biological, not a legal phenomenon; and that, therefore, if we can induce the rich to breed instead of the poor, everybody will be rich. A great deal of fuss is made about the fact that the poor breed more than the rich. I cannot bring myself to regard this fact as very regrettable, since I see no evidence whatever that the rich are in any way superior to the poor. Even if it were regrettable, it would not be matter for very serious regret, since there is, in fact, only a lag of a few years. The birth rate diminishes among the poor, and is quite as small now among them as it was nine years ago among the rich.^[1] There are certain factors, it is true, which make for a differential birth rate of an undesirable kind. For example, when governments and police authorities place difficulties in the way of the acquisition of birth-control information, the result is that persons whose intelligence falls below a certain level ​fail to acquire this information, while with others the attempts of the authorities are unsuccessful. Consequently all opposition to the dissemination of knowledge concerning contraceptives leads to stupid people having larger families than intelligent ones. It seems probable, however, that this is a very temporary factor, since before long even the stupidest will have either acquired birth-control information, or—what I fear is a tolerably common result of the obscurantism of the authorities—will have discovered persons willing to procure abortion.^[2]

Eugenics is of two sorts, positive and negative. The former is concerned with the encouragement of good stocks, the latter with the discouragement of bad ones. The latter is at present more practicable. It has, indeed, made great strides in certain states in America, and the sterilization of the unfit is within the scope of immediate practical politics in England. The ​objections to such a measure which one naturally feels are, I believe, not justified. Feeble-minded women, as every one knows, are apt to have enormous numbers of illegitimate childred, all, as a rule, wholly worthless to the community. These women would themselves be happier if they were sterilized; since it is not from any philoprogenitive impulse that they become pregnant. The same thing, of course, applies to feeble-minded men. There are, it is true, grave dangers in the system, since the authorities may easily come to consider any unusual opinion or any opposition to themselves as a mark of feeble-mindedness. These dangers, however, are probably worth incurring, since it is quite clear that the number of idiots, imbeciles, and feeble-minded could, by such measures, be enormously diminished.

Measures of sterilization should, in my opinion, be very definitely confined to persons who are mentally defective. I cannot favour laws such as that of Idaho, which allows sterilization of “mental defectives, epileptics, habitual criminals, moral degenerates, and sex perverts.” The last two categories here are very vague, and will be determined differently in different communities. The law of Idaho ​would have justified the sterilization of Socrates, Plato, Julius Cæsar, and St. Paul. Moreover, the habitual criminal may very possibly be the victim of some functional nervous disorder which could, at least theoretically, be cured by psycho-analysis, and which might well be not hereditary. Both in England and in America the laws on such subjects are framed in ignorance of the work of psycho-analysts, and they therefore lump together entirely different types of disorder, merely on the ground that they display somewhat similar symptoms. They are, that is to say, some thirty years behind the best knowledge of the time. This illustrates the fact that in all such matters it is very dangerous to legislate until science has arrived at stable conclusions which have remained unchallenged for several decades at least, since, otherwise, false ideas become embodied in statutes, and therefore endeared to magistrates, with the result that the practical application of better ideas is greatly retarded. Mental deficiency is, to my mind, the only thing at present sufficiently definite to be safely made the subject of legal enactment in this region. It can be decided in an objective manner, concerning which authori​ties would not disagree, whereas moral degeneracy, for example, is a matter of opinion. The same person whom one man might con- sider a moral degenerate will be considered by another to be a prophet. I do not say that the law ought not, at some future-time, to be extended more widely—I say only that our scientific knowledge at present is not adequate for this purpose, and that it is very dangerous for a community to allow its moral reprobations to masquerade in the guise of science, as has undoubtedly happened in various American States.

I come now to positive eugenics, which has more interesting possibilities, though as yet they belong to the future. Positive eugenics consists in the attempt to encourage desirable parents to have a large number of children. At present the exact contrary is general. An abnormally clever boy in an elementary school, for example, will rise into the professional classes, and will probably, therefore, marry at the age of thirty or thirty-five, whereas those in his original environment who are not unusually clever will marry at about twenty-five. The expense of education is a grave burden in the professional classes, and therefore causes ​them to limit their families very severely. Probably their intellectual average is somewhat higher than that of most other classes, so that this limitation is regrettable. The simplest measure for dealing with their case would be to grant free education up to and including the university to their children. That is to say, broadly speaking, that scholarships should be awarded on the merits of the parents rather than of the children. This would have the incidental advantage of doing away with cramming and overwork, which at present causes most of the cleverest young people in Europe to be intellectually and physically damaged by too much strain before they reach the age of twenty-one. It would probably, however, be impossible, either in England or in America, for the State to adopt any measure really adequate to cause professional men to breed large families. What stands in the way is democracy. The ideas of eugenics are based on the assumption that men are unequal, while democracy is based on the assumption that they are equal. It is, therefore, politically very difficult to carry out eugenic ideas in a democratic community when those ideas take the form, not of suggesting that there is a minority of inferior people ​such as imbeciles, but of admitting that there is a minority of superior people. The former is pleasing to the majority, the latter unpleasing. Measures embodying the former fact can therefore obtain the support of a majority, while measures embodying the latter cannot.

Nevertheless, every person who has given any thought to the subject knows that, although at present it may be difficult to determine who constitutes the best stocks, yet undoubtedly there are differences in this respect which science may hope to be able to measure before long. Imagine the feelings of a farmer who was told that he must give all his bull calves an equal opportunity! As a matter of fact, the bull which is to be the progenitor of the next generation is very carefully selected for the milk-giving qualities of his female ancestors. (We may note in passing that since science, art and war are unknown to this species, prominent merit attaches only to the female sex, and the male is at best a transmitter of feminine excellences.) All domestic animals have been improved enormously by scientific breeding, and it is not open to question that human beings could, by similar methods, be changed in any desired direction. ​It is, of course, much more difficult to deter- mine what we desire in human beings. It may be that if we bred people for physical strength we should diminish their brains. It may be that if we bred them for mental capacity we should render them more liable to various diseases. It may be that if we sought to produce emotional balance we should destroy art. On all these matters the necessary knowledge does not exist. It is not, therefore, desirable to do much in the way of positive eugenics at the present time. But it may easily be that within the next hundred years the sciences of heredity and bio-chemistry will have made such strides as to make possible the breeding of a race which everybody would admit to be superior to that now existing.

To apply scientific knowledge of this sort, however, would demand a more radical upheaval as regards the family than anything hitherto contemplated in these pages. If scientific breeding is to be carried out thoroughly, it will be necessary to set apart in each generation some two or three per cent of the males and some twenty-five per cent of the females for the purpose of propagation. There will be, presumably at puberty, an examination, as a ​result of which all the unsuccessful candidates will be sterilized. The father will have no more connection with his offspring than a bull or stallion has at present, and the mother will be a specialized professional, distinguished from other women by her manner of life. I do not say that this state of affairs is going to come about, still less do I say that I desire it, for I confess that I find it exceedingly repugnant. Nevertheless, when the matter is examined objectively, it is seen that such a plan might produce remarkable results. Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that it is adopted in Japan, and that at the end of three generations, most Japanese men are as clever as Edison and as strong as a prize-fighter. If, meanwhile, the other nations of the world had continued to leave matters to nature, they would be quite unable to stand up against Japan in warfare. Doubtless the Japanese, having reached such a pitch of ability, would find ways of employing the men of some other nation as soldiers, and would rely upon their scientific technique for victory, which they would be pretty sure to achieve. In such a system, blind devotion to the State would be very easy to instil in youth. Can any one say that a ​development of this sort in the future is impossible?

There is a kind of eugenics, very popular with certain types of politicians and publicists, which may be called race eugenics. This consists in the contention that one race or nation (of course that to which the writer belongs) is very Superior to all others, and ought to use its military power to increase its numbers at the expense of inferior stocks. The most noteworthy example of this is the Nordic propaganda in the United States, which has succeeded in winning legislative recognition in the immigration laws. This kind of eugenics can appeal to the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest; yet, oddly enough, its most ardent advocates are those who consider that the teaching of Darwinism should be illegal. The political propaganda bound up with racial eugenics is mostly of an undesirable sort; but let us forget this, and examine the question on its merits.

In extreme cases there can be little doubt of the superiority of one race to another. North America, Australia and New Zealand certainly contribute more to the civilization of the world than they would do if they were still ​peopled by aborigines. It seems on the whole fair to regard negroes as on the average inferior to white men, although for work in the tropics they are indispensable, so that their extermination (apart from questions of humanity) would be highly undesirable. But when it comes to discriminating among the races of Europe, a mass of bad science has to be brought in to support political prejudice. Nor do I see any valid ground for regarding the yellow races as in any degree inferior to our noble selves. In all such cases, racial eugenics is merely an excuse for chauvinism.

Julius Wolf^[3] gives a table of the excess of births over deaths per 1000 of the population in all the principal countries for which statistics exist. France is lowest (1.3), United States next (4.0), then Sweden (5.8), British India (5.9), Switzerland (6.2), England (6.2). Germany has 7.8, Italy 10.9, Japan 14.6, Russia 19.5, and Ecuador, which leads the world, 23.1. China does not appear in the list, since the facts are unknown. Wolf draws the conclusion that the Western World will be overwhelmed by the east, i.e. by Russia, China and Japan. I shall not attempt to rebut his argument by pinning ​my faith on Ecuador. Rather I shall point to his figures (already referred to) for the relative birth rates among rich and poor in London, showing that the latter are now lower than the former were a few years ago. The same thing applies to the East: as it becomes occidentalized, its birth rate will inevitably fall. A country cannot become formidable in a military sense except by becoming industrialized, and industrialism brings with it the type of mentality that leads to family limitation. We are therefore forced to conclude, not only that the domination of the East, which Western chauvinists (following the ex-Kaiser) profess to dread, would be no great misfortune if it occurred, but also that there is no valid ground for expecting that it will come about. Nevertheless, war-mongers will probably continue to use this bogey among others, until such time as an international authority can assign the permissible quotas of increase for the populations of the various States.

Here again, as on two former occasions, we are confronted by the dangers facing mankind if science advances while international anarchy continues. Science enables us to realize our purposes, and if our purposes are evil, the re​sult is disaster. If the world remains filled with malevolence and hate, the more scientific it becomes the more horrible it will be. To diminish the virulence of these passions is, therefore, an essential of human progress. To a very great extent their existence has been brought about by a wrong sexual ethic and a bad sexual education. For the future of civilization a new and better sexual ethic is indispensable. It is this fact that makes the reform of sexual morality one of the vital needs of our time.

From the standpoint of private morals, sexual ethics, if scientific and unsuperstitious, would accord the first place to eugenic considerations. That is to say, that however the existing restraints upon sexual intercourse might be relaxed, a conscientious man and woman would not enter upon procreation without the most serious consideration as to the probable value of their progeny. Contraceptives have made parenthood voluntary and no longer an automatic result of sexual intercourse. For various economic reasons which we have considered in earlier chapters, it seems likely that the father will have less importance in regard to the education and maintenance of children in the future than he has had in the past. ​There will, therefore, be no very cogent reason why a woman should choose as the father of her child the man whom she prefers as a lover or a companion. It may become quite easily possible for women in the future, without any serious sacrifice of happiness, to select the fathers of their children by eugenic considerations, while allowing their private feelings free sway as regards ordinary sexual companionship. For men it would be still easier to select the mothers of their children for their desirability as parents. Those who hold, as I do, that sexual behaviour concerns the community solely in so far as children are involved, must draw from this premise a twofold conclusion as regards the morality of the future: on the one hand, that love apart from children should be free, but on the other hand that the procreation of children should be a matter far more carefully regulated by moral considerations than it is at present. The considerations involved will, however, be somewhat different from those hitherto recognized. In order that procreation in a given case may be regarded as virtuous, it will no longer be necessary that certain words should have been pronounced by a priest, or a certain document drawn up by a ​registrar, for there is no evidence that such acts affect the health or intelligence of the offspring. What will be considered necessary is that the given man and woman, in themselves and in the heredity which they transmit, should be such as are likely to have desirable children. When science becomes able to pronounce on this question with more certainty than is possible at present, the moral sense of the community may come to be more exacting from a eugenic point of view. The men with the best heredity may come to be eagerly sought after as fathers, while other men, though they may be acceptable as lovers, may find themselves rejected when they aim at paternity. The institution of marriage, as it has existed hitherto, has made any such schemes contrary to human nature, so that the practical possibilities of eugenics have been thought to be very restricted. But there is no reason to suppose that human nature will in future interpose a similar barrier, since contraceptives are separating procreation from childless sexual relations, and fathers are likely in future to have no such personal relation with their children as they have had in the past. The seriousness and the high social ​purpose which moralists in the past have attached to marriage will, if the world becomes more scientific in its ethics, attach only to procreation.

This eugenic outlook, although it must begin as the private ethic of certain unusually scientific people, is likely to grow more and more widespread until at last it comes to be embodied in the law, presumably in the form of pecuniary rewards to desirable parents, and pecuniary penalties to such as are undesirable.

The idea of allowing science to interfere with our intimate personal impulses is undoubtedly repugnant. But the interference involved would be much less than that which has been tolerated for ages on the part of religion. Science is new in the world, and has not yet that authority due to tradition and early influences that religion has over most of us, but it is perfectly capable of acquiring the same authority and of being submitted to with the same degree of acquiescence that has characterized men’s attitude toward religious precepts. The welfare of posterity is, it is true, a motive by no means sufficient to control the average man in his passionate moments, but if it became a part of recognized positive moral​ity, with the sanction not only of praise and blame but of economic rewards and penalties, it would soon come to be accepted as a consideration which no well-conducted person could afford to ignore. Religion has existed since before the dawn of history, while science has existed for at most four centuries; but when science has become old and venerable it will control our lives as much as religion has ever done. I foresee the time when all who care for the freedom of the human spirit will have to rebel against a scientific tyranny. Nevertheless, if there is to be a tyranny, it is better that it should be scientific.