EUGENICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXIII, Issue 16034, 14 September 1912, Page 4

EUGENICS.

IMPROVING THE RACE. A GREAT CONGRESS TN LONDON [From Our Correspondent.] LONDON, August 2. The first International Eugenics Conference is being held in London, and lias produced some remarkable utterances by men whose authority on questions of race improvement cannot bo questioned. It is not too much to say that tho study of the problems of eugenics lias been given a great impetus by tho meeting of experts from all parts of Europe and America to discuss what is really the most important of the sciences. Half a dozen big : volumes will bo required to hold all tho addresses that have been placed before the Congress, but it is possible to indicate the trend of the debates by a few quotations. | Major T. Darwin, the president of : tho Congress, said that the Congress was assembled to discuss all possible methods of benefiting future generations mainly by improving their inborn qualities; or, in other words, to consider mankind’s duties to posterity in view of its increasing knowledge of the laws of heredity. Whether civilisation | was to be progressive or retrograde j depended on the success or failure |of tho eugenic movement, a struggle which was bound to last for many years to romp. ; If men eo"fi"pd their vie"- within a narrower horizon, and 10-k-d merely at their own form of civilisation, the history of the past afforded them no right whatever to pronlmsy a continued improvement in the immediate future in the lot of their race—"of evpn the right to deny the possibility of the dse-donoe of any nation. In fact. ! pride in their past achievements must not make them turn a dwaf ear to the warnings which came from a study, of tho laws of heredity. Many cir-. oumstances brought to imht in recent ! investigations ought to force them to consider whether the progress of West- 1 ern civilisation was not now at a stand- I still,, and, indeed, whether they were not in danger of an actual retrograde movement. In preventing suffering and caring for the unfit, added Major Darwin, men must not blind themselves to the danger of interfering with Nature’s ways, and they must proclaim aloud that to give themselvos the satisfaction of succouring their neighbours in distress without at the same time considering the effects likely to be produced by their charity on future generations was, to say the least, but weakness and folly. The reformers’ first effort, said Major Darwin, must bo to establish such a moral code as would ensure that the welfare, of the unborn should be held in view in connection with all questions concerning both tho marriage of the individual and the organisation of the State. As an agency making for progress, conscious selection must replace the blind forces of natural selection; and men must utilise all the knowledge acquired by studying tlie process of evolution in the past in order to promote moral and physical progress in the future. Eugenics was but the practical application of the principle of evolution, and might they not hope that the twentieth century would bo known in future as the century when the eugenic ideal was accepted as part of the creed of civilisation. Sir James Barr, the Liverpool physician, the new president of the British Medical Association, speaking on the problem of the feeble-minded, said “The medical profession had often joined forces with . seli-jonstilutcd moralists in denouncing the. falling birth-rate, and had called out for quantity regardless of quality. Physical degenerates should not be allowed to take any part in adding to the race. I kn ow that in the expression of these views I am coming into direct conflict with at least some of the churches, of which there arc almost as many varieties as there are of human beings. Ti c majority preach in favour of quantity rather than quality. They advocate a high birth-rate regardless of the consequences, and boldly tell you that it is better to lie born an imbecile than not to bo born at all. They forget the saying of Jesus of Nazareth that it would have boon well for this man if lie had never been born.” Mv R. C. Punnett said that the aim of the eugenist was to control human mating in order to obtain the largest proportion of individuals bo considered best fitted to the form of society which he affected. The one instance of eugenic importance that coukl be brought under immediate control was that of fe-eble-mindedriess. There was every reason to expect that a policy, of strict segregation, would rapidly bring about the elimination of this character.

“ Tiio Eugenics Congress,” said Mr A. J. Balfour, “ lias got to convince the public, in the first place.)that the study of eugenics is one of the greatest and most pressing necessities of our age. It lias got to nweko public interest, to make the ordinary man think of tha problems which are exercising the scientific mind at the present moment. It has also got to persuade him that the task which science has set itself in dealing with the eugenic problem is one of tho most most difficult and complex which it has over undertaken. I am one of those who base their belief in the future progress of mankind, in most departments, upon the application of scientific method to practical life. Wo are only at tho beginning of that movement; we are only at the beginning of this marriage between science and practice. The whole point of eugenics is that we reject the standard of mere numbers. Wo do not say survival is everything. We deliberately say that it is not everything: that a feeble-minded man, even though he survive, is not so good as the good professional man, even though that professional man is only one of a class that docs not keep up its numbers by an adequate birtii rate.”