SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR.

Press, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14472, 28 September 1912, Page 9

SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR.

EUGENICS. (Br Sra Rat ItAKKjESTHa, X.C.8., F.R.S.) (Special rights secured by "The Press.") The congress called by the society over which Major Darwin, the second son of the great Charles Darwin, presides—a society tho purpose of which is to spread a knowledge of eugenics and to promote enquiries and discussions in regard to tho vastly, important subject thus designated—has been a great su> cess. It has brought together in London a large number—some 500—members from all parts of Europe and America. Valuable addresses have been given, full of information and suggestions, and have been reported in tho daily papers. Tho public has learnt that there is a most important branch of knowledge, the proper understanding and application of which can lead to the improvement of the human race, to the increase of human happiness and prosperity. What is meant by tho word "eugenics" ? It is formed from the Greek word "eugenes," meaning "well born," and was introduced by the gifted cousin of Darwin, Sir Francis Galton—a worthy fellow-worker of his groat kinsman—to designate the attempt "to bring as many influences, as can reasonably be employed, to cause the useful classes or members of the community to contribute by parentage more than their proportion to the next generation, instead of less, as now frequently happens.

The well-established conclusion that the laws of transmission of parental qualities observed in animals and plants apply equally to the transmission of the bodily and mental qualities of mankind, led many of those who thought about such matters —when Mr Darwin's doctrine was first put forward —to tho conclusion that the action of the Principle of natural selection which determines the survival of apt or favoured races among plants and animals has been to a large extent evaded or suspended in the case of civilised man. In regard to a given species of animal or plant, wo find that —on a continent or island where it naturally occurs — there aro as. many individuals of that species as the natural conditions of food, shelter, etc., will support; yet each adult generation produces a number of young greatly in excess of the number of adults. In some species the excess is only tenfold, but it is often a thousand-fold, and in many cases a hundred-thousand fold. Only a single pair of this excess can survive to succeed a single parental pair. Consequently, there is a great destruction of the rising generation. Only those which are very perfect and healthy, those which exactly "fit the mould" imposed by Nature, those which can most completely avail themselves of food and shelter, and ultimately couple wren their mates, survive and transmit their perfect qualities—perfect or fit, be it understood, for attaining those to the next generation. The competition is srigantic; failure means death to. the disqualified! individuals and disappen ranee of the unsuccessf «1 qualities. Yet the struggle, though incessant and though inexorable, extinction _is the penalty of incompetence, is quiet, free from conscious pain or unhappiness.

The same law of excess hrreproduction and consequent competition in succeeding generations for the necessities of life and for the opportunity of parenthood holds good in the case of man. But man in proportion, as he has become intelligent, has set himself to oppose this destruction of his less capable offspring, and to resist tho selection of a strictly limited number, precisely fitted to the natural conditions of tho struggle for life—to take the place'of the elders who vacate by death —mail alone amongst animals- "increases and multiplies." This he has succeeded in doing by the use of his ever-growing intelligence. He arranges new conditions or enmb-'nntions i*i place of those once offered by Nature. He discovers new foods, new protections, new powers. He rears the weak anrl sickly; he even allows and carefully enahles them to' propagate and to transmit their weaknesses, their defects of body and brain, to new generations.

How is it, then, that mankind has not already become everywhere a diseased, broken-down, degenerate race? What will become of man in the future? Those who ask these questions base their anxiety upon the very extensive (but by no means complete) knowledge which we have now gained by controlling the bre?ding of domesticated ani- T mas and of cultivated plants. Man-' kind everywhere has taken under his protection not only his own offspring, but a number of other animals also. He has removed those animals from the special "weeding" action of the ordinary operation of the struggle for existence in extra-human conditions. Tho great wild' bull—the aurochs—has succumbed, and is extinct in the wild state, but the domesticated cattle of Europe aro his descendants, altered not by "natural selection, but by the selection in breeding applied by man. The disappearance of the wild stock ancL the continuance of the species is changed—often greatly changed—form and quality as domesticated or cultivated races is the rule with regard to cattle, sheep, horses, birds, fruit trees, grain, and other plants. Man's • experience in "breeding" these cultivated races shows him that by "selection" of sires and dams for breeding he can perpetuate and intensify qualities and forms 60 as completely to alter the stock with which he started. It also shows him that, no matter how he may crop and manipulate and nurse a defective individual, he cannot alter its reproductive germs so as to cause it to transmit those "nursed-up" qualities, ard not its original defects. In spite of all, it transmits to its offspring its original defects. Man has learnt that the germ matter in every individual, either male or female (which Galton called) by the Latin name, "stirps"), is the one important thing in breeding. A good stock means a stock which has within it "germ matter" (appearing as the eggs and the sperms) which is "good" -4hat is to say, good from the point of view of what he wants. He has not yet discovered that he can by any means alter that germ matter so as to produce particular qualities which he desires, except by "crossing it" —-by breeding" with another stockmixing the germ plasm of one strain with that of another. Man has further found that if he withdraws his selective breeding from a herd or a crop—if he no longer kills the unsatisfactory, ill-shaped, or defective individuals—if he no longer introduces new desirable strains, but allows any and all to breed—then the stock rapidly changes and ceases to be what he desires. Let us avoid the use of the word "deteriorate." The features approved by him are swamped by promiscuous* breeding. In a few generations his stock of animals or of plants

has becomo strangely nnhke what he had maintained as his ideal. "If thus" left —unselected, but protected—queer varieties and monstrosities will-appear in number, but eventually a limited selection will set in, determined by the survival of certain forms Etted to the peculiar conditions brought about by tlfe successive steps taken by the owner —namely, isolation and selection, followed by cessation of the breeders' selection with, nevertheless, protection and ample food supply.

It is by the study of such cases that we may hope to answer our questions and deal with our anxieties concerning tho human race. It is probable that man has not been "civilised" (that is, freed from the severer incidence or natural selection) for a long enough time to produce the full result of the cessation of selection. His nature is not so far modified as it will bo unless some selective process is devised by him. If we allow 10,000 years as tho period during which certain races of man have more and more developed the social and protective attitude towards their members, we must remember that this is but a short and novel epoch in the liistory of a man as a species, which probably extends back to 1,000,000 years. As to the future, it is probable that if the civilised races of man do not .consciously adopt some method of selective breeding, the strugglo and competition will develop at a later period between the different racegroups of mankind, when the surface of tho earth and the available sources of nutrition are at last fully taken up by:tho dense human population of that awful future. The simple, inexorable struggle for existence and consequent natural selection will return in full force after the brief interlude occupied by man in civilising himself and occupying every available square foot of the earth's surface.

Now, if the general truth of these considerations be admitted, the importance of eugenics becomes obvious. The purpose of eugenics is to discover first to what, extent groups of human beings might bo "improved" by selective breeding; and in the second place to ascertain how far, if at all, such selective breeding can bo encouraged or instituted in any given community. The matter is an exceedingly difficult and delicate one. AYe are met in the first place by a considerable section of those who join in the discussion of this subject, and maintain that an inferior or defective stock of human beings, is originally produced by evil conditons, such as bad food, bad air, alcoholic poison; and secondly, that a defective stock can be converted into a sound and heaithy stock by giving it good food, good air, and healthy surroundings and education. The facts which wo know about animals lend no support to these views. The word "stock" is used wrongly in place of "population." The "stirps" or germinal'matter is not injured by evil conditions. The individuals (the population) of the race subjected to such conditions may suffer; they may be enfeebled or even killed by such conditions. But the stock, if it survives; remains sound, and produces healthy, strong individuals when the evil conditions aro re l placed by healthy conditions. On tho ether hand, the defects of body and mind which appear in an unselected stock, whether of men or of animals, aro defects of the "stirps" or germ-plasm—-defects due to the characteristic and inevitable "variability" of all living things. They can only bo got rid of by selection and "breeding out"— that is, by preventing tho undesirable individuals from breeding.

It is obviously not possible to apply the principle of selection by legislation and forcible intervention —to civilised communities of men—on a large scale. But there aro some exceptional cases; in which it is agreed that it is right to separate the "undesirables" from their fellow-men. This is done in the case of those persons with defective minds, who are spoken of as "lunatics." The more marked and dangerous oases of lunacy are thus already separated and prevented from transmitting their defect to future generations. Eugenists are probably not going too far in advocating a more oareful and stringent effort to prevent all individuals tainted with .lunacy from producing children. Idiots as well as lunatics are already so kept apart, but there are individuals in all classes of life and in air parts of the country who are not absolutely to bo defined as "idiots," but are what is called "feeble-minded." It is the policy of eugenics to separate these unfortunately numerous individuals, to take care of them, and to see that they do not produce children. As the law stands at present, they are allowed to wander about without restraint, and owing to the very fact of their feeble-mindedness and want of self-control they constantly, among the poorer classes, produce children, and increase the number of semi-idiots and feeble-minded, helpless individuals in the population.

Whilst there cannot be serious objection to this amount of selection in the direction of eugenics, the question arises as to whether habitual criminals should bo prevented from transmitting their undesirable 1 qualities, for investigation has made it clear that in them the stirps (the germ-plasm) is at fault. So, too, with regard to individuals belonging to a stock or strain which is specially liable to" contract certain crippling diseases such as phthisis and others. It is sometimes suggested that the criminal is only a man of genius and originality gone wrong, that the liability to tubercular disease is often accompanied by exceptional mental gifts and ability, and even that, as the old lines run, "Great wit to madness is allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide." Consequently it is, said that should you suppress the stock of madmen of criminals, and consumptives, you might, without intending to do so, be at the same time destroying important sources of genius and varied ability in the race so purified. That is where we want more information —and that is what the Eugenics Society can gather for us. Do such "correlations" exist? In any case without legislation and compulsory methods, it is possible to cultivate a strong public opinion which should make every ono careful in these matters —and when we have ab-* solutely, certain knowledge as to the desirable .qualities (if any) which are transmitted along with undesirable qualities—the community may be willing to submit to further legislation on the subject. In the meantime, it is absolutely certain that enormous injury and no accompanying good is being done by allowing the "feeble-minded" to mix, unguarded, uncared for, with the normal population. There is reason to hope that this fertile source of race-deterioration will be checked by the Bill now before Parliament.

The questions which the Eugenists have to consider and tho knowledge they have yet to arrive at by thorough scientific methods, aro very numerous. It is not possible even to name them here; but there is one, subject of great interest which the directors of experimental gardens and laboratories, where the laws of heredity are being ascertained by observations on plants and animals, must sooner or later deal with. We know that "variations" make their appearance in seedlings, broods of animals, and children —variations which may be defects or departures from what we consider desirable; or, again, variations [ which ..may be in the direction of increased power and excellence, according to our point of view. The breeder has to wait for these variations to appear. He destroys what ho regards as the undesirable;_ he rears the desirable. These congenital variations are variations in the stirp* or germ-plasm. They are transmitted to the offspring. The question is: "Can such germinal variations be rendered.

more frequent by any treatment of tho parents?" If so, "Can we in any way incite a variation of a desired rather than an undesired kind? If wo can do it in plants or animals, can we dp it in mankind?" This would indeed be the triumph of Eugenics were it possible. But at present we have no knowledge of how to produce desirable variations even in domestic animals; we have to wait upon chance or accident—that is to say, the action of causes of which we are ignorant. Darwin showed that certain conditions—such as abrupt change of food, the climate, and the other surroundings of an animal or a often result in marked variabilis in its offspring. } an ?" tion "can ,bo induced, and is induced, in this way by horticulturists as .a regular practice. But it is only variation of some kind or other—unknown beforehand. No one has yet been able to produce straight off the one particular sort of variation in the offspring of a given organism which he desired, although tho patriarch Jacob is credited with having done so by showing peeled sticks to the ewes of his father-in-law's flock. It is not impossible that we may find out how to start this or that special variation in the new generation. If, then, this could be applied to humanity, and the new generations could bo made to vary in the direction of intelligence, goodness of heart, strength of will, and general soundness of body, it would indeed be worth while to legislate in favour of eugeabs. At present it must bo admitted that if we could, by selection, control tho breeding of a human population as wo can that of cattle, horses, and dogs, there is no one (except the proverbial one who rushes in where angels fear to tread; who would dare to interfere beyond the point of exploding all those afflicted with transmissible disease or tendency to disease, and even the result of that amount of interference must bo

at present - a little doubtful. Who would dare to select for beauty? It might mean en increase of stupidity. Who would venture to emphasise intellect or good digestion? Either might mean the accompaniment of &ome hideous defect Man certainly could not, with his present knowledge, undertake with any confidence the apportionment of mental and bodily qualities to future generations. The "seething pot" of humanity is a straneo and mysterious thing as it is. Until we know more, we dare not undertake. tho flavouring of the contents.