IMPROVING THE RACE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1813, 28 July 1913, Page 6

IMPROVING THE RACE.

The improvement of the human raco is the great object which the student of eugenics has in view, and everyone is interested in it even though many people are to view with considerable suspicion some of the methods suggested for producing the much-discussed superman. In a cablegram published in last Saturday's issue wo were informed that Dr. Campbell, physician to tho Hospital for Nervous Diseases, asserted at the medical conference at Brighton that it is theoretically possible to breod a raco of supermen perfect in form and of supreme moral and intellectual endowment. This is a very attractive idea, but unfortunately there is usually a great gulf in theso matters between that which is theoretically conceivable and that which is practically possible. The .methods of the stockyard cannot bo applied to the human race, and if they were tho results obtained might be very different from those expected. Physical fitness is often associated with low moral and mental capacities, and high moral and intellectual qualities are often allied with lifelong physical unfitness. As a matter of fact the present state of scientific knowledge does not justify any drastic action with the object of raising "a manlier breed, a better ruling stock, than those now directing tho destinies of Empire." Ono of the leaders of the Eugenic movement in England admits that organised research in connection with raco improvement ha-s so far produced very few definite results, and except 111 the case of the feeble-minded, and probably in tho caso of hopeless criminals, and possibly as regards certain types of blindness and deaf-mutism State interferenco is not at present justified. Another scientific authority frankly states that these proposals for improving the ' race on scientific lines do not yet come withJn tho sDhero of practical politics,

hut, he adds, there is little doubt that tho nation whioh first finds a way to make them practical will in a very short time be the leader of the world. The problem is well worthy of the most careful etudy, but in tho matter of actual Stato interference wo must bo content to "mako haste slowly."